"Not Even for Three Lines in History": Jewish Women Underground Members and Partisans during the Holocaust

The objective in this chapter is to draw as comprehensive a portrait as possible of the involvement of Jewish women who actively opposed the German Nazis during the Holocaust. Among the 1.5 million Jews fighting Germany within the framework of various regular armies, many were Jewish women. Some had escaped from areas subjected to the German Nazi occupation. A majority of these women joined the Red Army, which treated them as regular soldiers, as it did with other women in the army; they fought as pilots, machine gunners, lookouts, artillery crew mem­bers, and rnany other combat ratings. The activities of these women deserve separate study. This chapter, however, is limit to a survey of the Jewish women who took part in active resistance on German Nazi-occupied soil. The subject is examined from the perspective of gender research while focusing on the relationships between men and women constructed within their separate contexts. In addition, the factors that differenti­ated the patterns of resistance adopted by women in Eastern as distinct from Central and Western Europe are delineated. [Author]