Professor Stefan Chrissanthos
History 110B
4 May 2015
Women During The Holocaust When we think back to what we have learned about the holocaust we remember the concentration camps and the Nazi army, we remember the lifestyles of the men and children prisoners but we almost never touch base and acknowledge the Jewish women during this time. The Holocaust was a severe tragedy, which began in the late 1930s and lasted until the end of the Second World War in 1945 . As the Holocaust occurred, “as documented by survivors, witnesses, and those tasked with liberating those who survived – and burying those who did not”. It is well known world wide as the genocide of about seven million European Jews during World War II, by the German …show more content…
Unlike men “women didn’t have circumcision to revel their ethnicity (experience and expressions 56)”. Jewish women were more likely to pass as non-Jewish women, and live in hiding. Although some women were able to stay out of concentration camps, women in hiding during the holocaust still had a lot of hardships to overcome. Jewish women who were kept in hiding during the holocaust were fortunate enough not to be sentenced to death or violence, but these women still faced a life full of boundaries and limited resources making it difficult to survive. Even with the lack of nutrition and money, a lot of Jewish women were able to get through the Holocaust, due to non-Jewish women that kept them hidden in there homes or work places and those women that “lead Communist and Zionist youth movements” (experience and expression) for the protection of Jewish women. For example a woman named Irena Sendler was a German women working as a social worker for German government, used her job to her advantage and helped many Jewish women. When the holocaust began . When the Council for Aid to Jews was started, Irene Slender became one of the most influential women activists. When The Council was created in late 1942, after a majority of Jewish women were deported from Warsaw to Treblinka. Slender played a …show more content…
There were multiple women “whom escaped and served in armed partisan units”(Milton 56). Other women were leaders and members of ghetto resistance organizations, groups of Jewish people that refused to take German orders. During the time of “The Warsaw ghetto uprising, in the spring of 1943” (holocaust memorial museum) was the largest single rebellion of Jews that women took a part of, at this time Five Jewish women prisoners supplied the gunpowder used to blow up a gas chamber and kill several SS men in October of 1944. It is true the Jewish women in camps were mistreated in many ways but Women also had an advantage during the holocaust because of the unions and bonds they learned to build in and out of camps with other woman. From keeping each other warm with body heat and being able to pass as non-Jewish women to the organizations built around the safety and needs of them