Back in 1946, the whole purpose of Freuen was to inform American Jews about the incredible efforts of Jewish women in the ghettos. Several contributors simply assumed that these women would become household names, suggesting that future historians would map this incredible terrain. Fighter Ruzka Korczak wrote that these female resistance stories are “our nation’s great treasures” and would become an essential part of Jewish folklore.
Seventy-five years later, these heroes are still largely unknown, their pages in the book of eternal memory unwritten. Until now.
Prologue: Flash Forward—Defense or Rescue?
From above, one might mistake the small town, with its glistening castle and pastel buildings, its streetscapes of candy colors, as a magical kingdom. A settlement since the ninth century, B?dzin was first erected as a fortress city, guarding the ancient trade route between Kiev and the West. Like many of Poland’s medieval cities, especially those in this forest-filled area in the south of the country, B?dzin’s landscape is glorious. The verdant vistas don’t suggest division and death, endless battles and decrees. Viewed at a distance, one would never guess that this royal town topped with a golden turret was an emblem of the near destruction of the Jewish people.
B?dzin, located in the Polish region of Zaglembie, had been home to Jews for hundreds of years. Jews worked and flourished in the district since the 1200s AD. In the late sixteenth century, the king granted B?dzin Jews the rights to own prayer houses, buy real estate, engage in unlimited trade, slaughter animals, and distribute alcohol. For more than two hundred years, as long as they paid taxes, Jews were protected and established strong trade relationships. In the eighteen hundreds, the town flipped to stringent Prussian and then Russian rule, but local groups opposed these foreign colonists and advocated Polish Jewish brotherhood. In the twentieth century, the economy boomed, modern schools were established, and B?dzin became a center for novel philosophies, especially socialism. New waves of practice led to passionate and productive internal conflict: Jewish political parties, professorships, and press abounded. As in many towns across the country, Jews comprised a growing percentage of the population, intricately woven into the fabric of everyday life. The Yiddish-speaking residents formed an essential part of the area; in turn, Zaglembie became an integral part of their identity.
In 1921, when B?dzin was referred to as “the Jerusalem of Zaglembie,” Jews owned 672 local factories and workshops. Nearly half of all B?dziners were Jewish, and a good number were well-to-do: doctors, lawyers, merchants, and the owners of manufacturing plants. They were a liberal, secular, moderately socialist group who visited coffee shops, had summerhouses in the mountains, enjoyed tango nights, jazz and skiing, and felt European. The working class and religious Jews also thrived, with dozens of prayer houses and a wide selection of parties to vote for in the Jewish council. In the 1928 municipal election, twenty-two parties were represented, seventeen of them Jewish organizations. B?dzin’s deputy mayor was a Jew. Of course, these Jews did not know that the dynamic world they had built would soon be utterly destroyed—or that they would have to fight for their legacy and their lives.
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In September 1939 the invading German army overran B?dzin. The Nazis burnt down the town’s grand, Romanesque synagogue—a centerpiece proudly built just downhill from the castle—then murdered dozens of Jews. Three years later, twenty thousand Jews wearing Star of David armbands were forced into a small neighborhood outside the town, with several families pushed together into shacks and single rooms. People who had enjoyed centuries of relative peace, prosperity, and social integration, centuries of culture, were squashed into a few disheveled blocks. The B?dzin community had a new pocket. A dark and dank pocket. The ghetto.
The ghettos in Zaglembie were some of the last in Poland to be “liquidated,” Hitler’s army arriving there at a later stage to complete their “Final Solution.” Many of the ghetto inhabitants had work permits and were sent to forced labor in German weapons factories and workshops rather than immediately being hauled off to death camps. In B?dzin, postal communication was still possible. These ghettos had contact with Russia, Slovakia, Turkey, Switzerland, and other non-Aryan lands. Even in these dark pockets, then, emerged cells of Jewish resistance.