Mothers, Sisters and Resisters: Jewish Women during the Holocaust

In this lecture, Holocaust historian and archivist Bonnie Gurewitsch examines how gender impacted on Jewish women's Holocaust experiences. Many experienced single motherhood when their husbands were deported or killed by the Nazis. They assumed new responsibilities with resourcefulness, courage and daring. Young girls and women were separated from their parents and took extraordinary measures to stay together. Some sisters experienced the Holocaust together; others adopted each other and maintained a sisterly relationship which survived the Holocaust until they died. Some women joined with others to resist the Nazi occupation, protecting Jews, serving as couriers for organized resistance groups in ghettos and forests, or smuggling gunpowder to the men of the Auschwitz resistance. This lecture was the first of a three-part series on Jewish women in the Holocaust. It was delivered on February 7, 2021.