But here, in Freuen in di Ghettos, was a different version of the women-in-war story. I was jolted by these tales of agency. These were women who acted with ferocity and fortitude—even violently—smuggling, gathering intelligence, committing sabotage, and engaging in combat; they were proud of their fire. The writers were not asking for pity but were celebrating active valor and intrepidness. Women, often starving and tortured, were brave and brazen. Several of them had the chance to escape yet did not; some even chose to return and battle. My bubbe was my hero, but what if she’d decided to risk her life by staying and fighting? I was haunted by the question: What would I do in a similar situation? Fight or flight?
*
At first, I imagined that the several dozen resistance operatives mentioned in Freuen comprised the total amount. But as soon as I touched on the topic, extraordinary tales of female fighters crawled out from every corner: archives, catalogues, strangers who emailed me their family stories. I found dozens of women’s memoirs published by small presses, and hundreds of testimonies in Polish, Russian, Hebrew, Yiddish, German, French, Dutch, Danish, Greek, Italian, and English, from the 1940s to today.
Holocaust scholars have debated what “counts” as an act of Jewish resistance. Many take it at its most broad definition: any action that affirmed the humanity of a Jew; any solitary or collaborative deed that even unintentionally defied Nazi policy or ideology, including simply staying alive. Others feel that too general a definition diminishes those who risked their lives to actively defy a regime, and that there is a distinction between resistance and resilience.
The rebellious acts that I discovered among Jewish women in Poland, my country of focus, spanned the gamut, from those involving complex planning and elaborate forethought, like setting off large quantities of TNT, to those that were spontaneous and simple, even slapstick-like, involving costumes, dress-up, biting and scratching, wiggling out of Nazis’ arms. For many, the goal was to rescue Jews; for others, to die with and leave a legacy of dignity. Freuen highlights the activity of female “ghetto fighters”： underground operatives who emerged from the Jewish youth group movements and worked in the ghettos. These young women were combatants, editors of underground bulletins, and social activists. In particular, women made up the vast majority of “couriers,” a specific role at the heart of operations. They disguised themselves as non-Jews and traveled between locked ghettos and towns, smuggling people, cash, documents, information, and weapons, many of which they had obtained themselves.
In addition to ghetto fighters, Jewish women fled to the forests and enlisted in partisan units, carrying out sabotage and intelligence missions. Some acts of resistance occurred as “unorganized” one-offs. Several Polish Jewish women joined foreign resistance units, while others worked with the Polish underground. Women established rescue networks to help fellow Jews hide or escape. Finally, they resisted morally, spiritually, and culturally by concealing their identities, distributing Jewish books, telling jokes during transports to relieve fear, hugging barrack-mates to keep them warm, and setting up soup kitchens for orphans. At times this last activity was organized, public, and illegal; at others, it was personal and intimate.
Months into my research, I was faced with a writer’s treasure and challenge: I had collected more incredible resistance stories than I ever could have imagined. How would I possibly narrow it down and select my main characters?
Ultimately, I decided to follow my inspiration, Freuen, with its focus on female ghetto fighters from the youth movements Freedom （Dror） and The Young Guard （Hashomer Hatzair）。 Freuen’s centerpiece and longest contribution was written by a female courier who signed her name “Renia K.” I was intimately drawn to Renia—not for being the most well-known, militant, or charismatic leader, but for the opposite reason. Renia was neither an idealist nor a revolutionary but a savvy, middle-class girl who happened to find herself in a sudden and unrelenting nightmare. She rose to the occasion, fueled by an inner sense of justice and by anger. I was enthralled by her formidable tales of stealing across borders and smuggling grenades, and by the detailed descriptions of her undercover missions. At age twenty, Renia recorded her experience of the preceding five years with even-keeled and reflective prose, vivid with quick characterizations, frank impressions, and even wit.