Teaching the Legacy #36- e-Newsletter for Holocaust Educators - Women in the Holocaust
Source: Yad Vashem
The reality of World War II and the Holocaust forced women to cope with new, unforeseen circumstances and fundamental dilemmas, compelling them to make difficult and often fateful decisions. They did their best to protect their families, to obtain food, to find work, and to defend their children—sometimes even paying the unbearable price of separation. Women took on a number of roles at that time: they ran public soup kitchens and children’s dorms, they worked as teachers and caretakers, as doctors and nurses, and they even joined partisan groups and underground resistance movements.
The current issue of "Teaching the Legacy" provides a platform for the unique voice of women during the Holocaust: a discussion of the exciting lives of Lena Küchler-Silberman and Rachel Auerbach, and their rescue and relief efforts during the Holocaust; and an account of the female inmates of the death-camps Ravensbrück and Auschwitz-Birkenau.