Sara Fortis or Kapetenissa Sarika by ABIGAIL CROSBY

Background

abigailcrosby — 2025-05-08 15:18:23 UTC

Sara, or Sarika Yehoshua, was born in 1927, in a town near Athens, Greece called Chalcis. She never knew her father, who passed away when she was only two months old, but her mother raised her and her sister. Though Sara and her family were 100% Greek, they celebrated being Jewish. When Sara lived here she worked as a nurse at the start of the war. Then, in 1941 when the Nazis arrived, Sara and her mother escaped to a small village to hide out. Then Sara left her mother and became an andarte (a resistance fighter). Wanting to do more, she went from village to village recruiting other females who else wanted to fight against the Nazis. Then she became a leader and formed a band of female partisans, who were very feared by male fighters. Although the female andartes did all the work, the male andartes were given the credit for many missions. By the age of 18, she became Kapetenissa Sarika. After the war, she immigrated to Israel, where she met her husband and settled down.

Sara Fortis

abigailcrosby — 2025-05-09 15:08:09 UTC

2025-05-12 15:00:37 UTC

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abigailcrosby — 2025-05-14 01:53:51 UTC

The Act of Resistance

abigailcrosby — 2025-05-14 02:07:27 UTC

Sara hid with her mother in Kuturla until it was no longer safe for Jews. Sara left, but her mother stayed and hid. Then, Sara traveled all across Greece recruiting other women who wanted to fight. Once formed, they called themselves the andartes. On their first mission, they were ordered to throw Molotov cocktails to draw the Nazi's attention away from an area that a group of male partisans planned to attack. Though the girl group did most of the work, the credit went to their male comrades because it was unthinkable for young women to fight so fiercely. Sara was constantly worried about her and the girl's safety because they were forced to sleep next to the men. Even with all of these hardships, Sara continued to succeed and gained more recognition for their actions. Although they gained the recognition they wanted, there were still some more struggles after the war. For example, Fortis's troops worried that their acts of resistance would not allow them from being accepted back into their homes, but they all were welcomed. Sara then continued to be an activist and she got arrested by the post- war government, then she decided to settle down in Israel.

Impact

abigailcrosby — 2025-05-14 02:57:59 UTC

The impact of Sara's actions were both a blessing and a curse towards her because the Nazis sent a collaborator to kill Sara, but instead got a school teacher Menti Moshowitz. They sexually assaulted and murdered Moshowitz in Sara's name, and when she found out she swore revenge. Using her emotions, good and bad, she hunted the collaborator and killed him herself. Even though Sara endured this pain, she was still able to stay determined and hopeful to resist the opposition. She is a role model exemplifying bravery for her actions. As she says in her own words, "fear was not in my dictionary."

Quotes

abigailcrosby — 2025-05-14 03:00:56 UTC

"I was "Captain Sarika." If anyone needed anything, they would say, "Tell Captain Sarika and she'll take care of it." Sara says this in the interview for the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation.

Quotes

abigailcrosby — 2025-05-14 03:05:10 UTC

A quote Sara said all the time, "don't look at the place of the woman as needing to be at home all the time." Sara said this when she was recruiting other girls and young women to try to help them go with her instead of following gender norms.

Pictures

abigailcrosby — 2025-05-14 03:05:52 UTC

Events during the 1940s

abigailcrosby — 2025-05-14 13:06:40 UTC

World War 2, the Holocaust, atomic bombs, and the beginning of the Cold War were all occurring during the 1940s. This caused the women were needed to replace the men who went to war, the women worked in the factories pulling the U.S. out of the Great Depression. When the men returned, they had to go back to college to get an education because of the GI Bill. Then the U.S. emerged from the war as a world superpower, challenged only by the Soviet Union.

abigailcrosby — 2025-05-14 13:20:56 UTC

This is an image of Sara as a nurse. She was a nurse during the start of the war before she fled home to get away from the Nazis.

Quotes

abigailcrosby — 2025-05-14 13:25:30 UTC

"Every day," Fortis recalls, "I was taught something new and then I taught it to them." This is another quote she says in the interview for the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation. This quote shows exactly how Sara would teach the girls, she would not hesitate, but go directly to them and teach them. This shows how Sara cared about there well being, she also cared if they could actually defend themselves or not. She wanted the girls to be strong not weak.

abigailcrosby — 2025-05-14 13:30:23 UTC

This is a picture of Sara with her cousin. Although Sara was a resistor, she was also just a normal girl. She did do fun things, just like a normal person. But she did have the determination to stand up and fight against what she thought was wrong. She also did have a life before and after the Holocaust.