Heroines of the Holocaust

Prof. Lori R. Weintrob is the Founding Director of the Wagner College Holocaust Center and Professor in the Department of History, Wagner College, Staten Island, New York. Prof. Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz is the Director of the Finkler Institute of Holocaust Research, the Abraham and Edita Spiegel Family Professor in Holocaust Research, the Rabbi Pynchas Brener Professor in Research on the Holocaust of European Jewry, and Professor in the Israel and Golda Koschitzky Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry, Bar-Ilan University, Israel.

Part 1: Identifying Gendered Courage

1. Holocaust Heroines: Definitions and Dilemmas

Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz

2. Feminine Leadership and Dual Leadership in the Jewish Resistance Organizations in Poland - Avihu Ronen and Dafna Itzkovich

3. The Leadership Lessons of Zivia Lubetkin

Lori R. Weintrob

Part 2: Resistance by Women in Nazi Germany

4. Defiance and Protest of Jewish Women in Nazi Germany

Wolf Gruner

5. Everyday Routines as a Special Form of Female Resistance

Elisabeth Pönisch

6. Maria Leitner’s Undercover Reporting and Research on German National Socialism

Sabine Kalff

Part 3: Professional Women: Rethinking Survival Skills in the Holocaust

7. Hélène Cazès Benatar in Morocco During World War II

Michal Ben Ya'akov

8. Professions of Life: Social Welfare Professionals as Rescuers During the Holocaust

Katy Matello

9. Hadassah Bimko (Rosensaft) at Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen- Belsen

Menachem Z. Rosensaft

Part 4: Women’s Voices in the Ghettos, Camps and in the Partisans

10. Why We Need Heroines: Reflections on My Mother, Vladka Meed

Steven Meed

11. Rikle Glezer: Poet Partisan of Vilna

Jay Saper and Corbin Allardice

12. Auschwitz, October 1943: A Woman Hero Without a Name

Bożena Karwowska

13. Greek Women as Resisters and Rescuers in the Holocaust

Yitzchak Kerem

14. Heroines of the Forest: Jewish Women in Partisan Units in Lithuania and Belarus

Daniela Ozacky Stern

15. Remembering Three Ravensbrück Heroes

Rochelle G. Saidel

Part 5: Comparative Frameworks: The Armenian Genocide, the Porajmos and the Genocide of the Tutsis

16. Women Resisters to the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Syria

Khatchig Mouradian

17. Spaces of Resistance of Sinti and Romani Women during the Nazi Persecution

Verena Meier

18. The Role of Ukrainian Women in Rescuing Jews during the Holocaust in Ukraine

Hanna Abukanova

19. Women Rescuers in the 1994 Genocide of Tutsi in Rwanda

Jennie E. Burnet

Part 6: After the Holocaust: Remembering Women’s Activism

20. Zivia Lubetkin; Her Public Story, Her Private Story

Sharon Geva

21. Thea Altaras: Reclaiming Jewish Identity after the Resistance

Anita Lukic

22. Afterword: On Audacity

Judy Batalion