0:00

Welcome to Nobody Told

0:02

Me. I'm Laura Owens.

0:04

And I'm Jan Black.

0:06

And we'd love to

0:09

learn about the lives

0:17

of remarkable people and find out how they

0:19

cope during difficult times on the show. On

0:22

this episode, we'll learn about some of

0:24

the unsung heroines of World War II,

0:27

the brave young Jewish women in the

0:29

ghettos of the Nazi occupation in Poland.

0:31

They saw and acknowledged the truth of

0:34

their time and risked their lives in

0:36

the fight for justice and freedom. And

0:38

joining us is author Judy Batallion, who

0:41

did painstaking research in writing the

0:43

new book, The Light of Days,

0:45

the untold story of women resistance

0:47

fighters in Hitler's ghettos. It's a

0:49

story that is so inspirational, fascinating,

0:51

and important that Steven Spielberg has

0:53

optioned it for a major motion

0:55

picture. Judy, we thank you so

0:58

much for joining us. Thank

1:00

you so much for having me. I'm really excited

1:02

to be here. Paint the picture

1:05

for us, if you will, of

1:07

the ghettos in the Nazi occupation in

1:09

Poland during World War II and the

1:11

female resistance fighters in those ghettos. Sure.

1:16

So just for some context, there were

1:18

over 400 ghettos

1:20

in Poland in

1:22

World War II. Nazis set

1:25

up ghettos to

1:27

imprison Jews. These were usually in

1:29

what were the formerly poor areas

1:32

of cities and towns. And

1:34

they threw out all Christians who were

1:36

living there and forced all the Jews,

1:39

the local Jews to move in. They

1:41

were usually extremely

1:43

crowded. The ghettos were very

1:45

small. You could have several families sharing

1:48

room. They were suffered

1:50

from tremendous hunger. There

1:52

was disease. There was thirst. And

1:55

people were truly terrified. They Didn't

1:58

know. What

2:00

we the going on. They were being

2:02

tortured. There was an ah, you know

2:04

they don't They lived in fear of

2:07

death constantly. People

2:09

Salts fully occupied both

2:12

physically and and mentally

2:14

psychically. On. Can. I

2:16

you asked about the women and in

2:18

these conditions So the women that I

2:20

am I right about in my book.

2:22

Or young Jewish women who are in

2:24

these ghettos. And and

2:27

came together. Or

2:29

work together to resist and

2:31

to defy the nazis and

2:33

they did many different things

2:35

that that I i I

2:37

try to to show a

2:39

wide range of they are

2:41

organized resistance activity. in some

2:43

cases it was organizing soup

2:46

kitchens and secret underground school

2:48

secret a cultural programs. Bulletin.

2:51

They they wrote underground bulletins,

2:53

they edited newspapers and some

2:55

women were. I'm They. They

2:58

left the ghetto was and and

3:00

I can get into that later

3:02

on they pretended to be Christian.

3:04

they would go out and blow

3:06

up next, see supply trains and

3:09

assassinate Gestapo men. They were also

3:11

ghetto fighters in in ghetto uprising.

3:13

they were guerrilla fighters and and

3:15

many of the women that I

3:17

talk about at the risk to

3:20

their lives. They they were courier

3:22

girls. They slip in and out

3:24

of ghettos all the time connecting

3:26

the ghettos, bringing jews. Information: I'm

3:29

bringing them these bullets in,

3:31

sometimes breeding them in in

3:33

their hair. And

3:35

eventually be were they were

3:37

actually helping to arm the

3:39

underground smugly and weapons, ammunition,

3:41

explosives, and also rescuing other

3:44

jews, helping take two's out

3:46

of the ghettos and finding

3:48

them safe spaces either in

3:50

cities or in the forests.

3:53

It seems like bees are women that

3:55

we should have known about for years

3:57

and years now. I mean, there's so

3:59

many different heroes that we've been

4:01

fortunate enough to learn from during the

4:03

Holocaust World War II, but these women

4:05

seem so special and unique. Why

4:08

is it that we are just now learning about

4:10

them? And how did you even find out about them?

4:12

That was by mistake as well. Yes,

4:15

this was completely by accident.

4:17

Let me start by answering

4:19

there. This whole project began

4:21

serendipitously. It began

4:24

14 years ago. It's been

4:26

quite an odyssey. I was

4:28

living in London at the time. And

4:30

I was thinking and exploring my Jewish,

4:32

thinking a lot about my Jewish identity.

4:35

I myself am the granddaughter

4:37

of Holocaust survivors. And I

4:39

was thinking a lot about what

4:42

I call the emotional legacy of the

4:44

Holocaust, the generational transmission of trauma.

4:46

And in my own life, I was

4:48

thinking a lot about how I, how

4:51

I responded to danger, and how

4:53

my Holocaust heritage had sort of shaped

4:55

my understanding of risk and danger. And

4:58

I decided to write a piece about

5:00

this, this kind of psychological element. And

5:02

I happened to be doing some research

5:05

at the British Library and accidentally

5:08

came across a book. It

5:11

was an old, unusual book in a

5:13

blue fabric cover with gold lettering and

5:15

a dusty old book. It was also

5:17

in Yiddish. It was called

5:19

Freun in the Ghettos, Women in

5:21

the Ghettos. And I started

5:24

flipping through the book. But

5:26

this was a story of women in the

5:29

ghettos. Like I had never heard. This was

5:31

a collection of sort of dozens and dozens

5:34

of names and photographs,

5:36

bios, obituaries, excerpts, and

5:38

testimonies of young Jewish

5:41

women who fought the Nazis from

5:44

the ghettos with chapter

5:46

titles like weapons and

5:48

ammunition and partisan combat.

5:51

So I immediately I

5:53

was stunned by this I had to, you know, I

5:55

thought my Yiddish was a bit rusty. I reread it

5:58

a few times trying to get to the Ghettos. to

6:00

make sure I was getting this right. But

6:02

I knew that I

6:04

knew right away that this was a really remarkable

6:07

story that I needed to work on.

6:10

You know, the one question that comes

6:12

to my mind is how much surveillance

6:15

did the Nazis have over these women?

6:17

I mean, how is it that they

6:19

were able to mount this kind

6:21

of resistance? Well,

6:24

there are many reasons. So women

6:26

in particular took on this role

6:28

in the resistance where they

6:31

left the ghettos. They did

6:33

work on the outside. And

6:35

yes, there was tremendous surveillance

6:37

that they, they every step

6:39

they took crossing the ghetto

6:41

gate or, or, or border

6:44

every step outside, I mean, was at the risk

6:46

to their lives. And many of them were killed.

6:50

But women, women were, it was easier

6:53

for women to pass than for men

6:55

to pass as Christians. And

6:57

that's partially why women took on a

6:59

lot of this work on the outside.

7:02

Women were not circumcised. So

7:05

they didn't have the physical

7:07

marker of their Jewishness on their body.

7:10

They also in the 1930s in Poland,

7:12

boys and girls were

7:15

subject to mandatory education. But often

7:17

in Jewish families, they would send

7:19

their sons to Jewish schools, but

7:21

their daughters to Polish public schools,

7:24

this was to save on tuition. But

7:26

ultimately, this meant that the girls, the

7:29

girls who I write about, who ended

7:31

up becoming these underground operatives, they

7:33

were accustomed to Polish mores,

7:36

their habits to Christian prayers,

7:39

even and mannerisms and nuance.

7:41

They also learned to speak

7:44

Polish, like a

7:46

pole, they always say without their

7:48

creaky Yiddish accent. And

7:51

so, yes, this was, you

7:53

know, they were they were performing this

7:56

was a life and death acting job.

7:58

They were performing second

8:01

of the day, every second of their missions,

8:03

they were living these false identities. But several

8:05

of them managed and they did it. We

8:09

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10:18

What can we learn today

10:20

about resilience from them? And

10:22

what can the modern young

10:25

woman in 2021 who is dealing with

10:27

such different struggles, how can she try

10:29

and get some of that courage and

10:31

apply it to her own life? That's

10:34

a great question. And

10:36

I think there are a few things we

10:38

can learn. The first one is that different

10:41

people resisted

10:44

and revolted in different ways.

10:48

Everyone's different. Everyone has different personalities

10:50

and conditions in their lives. And

10:52

as I mentioned earlier, some women,

10:54

they were taking care of orphans

10:56

and helping to rescue

11:00

them and finding children hiding

11:03

spots, whereas others were combat

11:05

fighters and throwing explosives. And

11:09

people can resist in different ways

11:12

that sort of suit them

11:14

and their personalities and

11:17

their life situations. Also

11:21

something that's really interesting to

11:23

me in this story is that these weren't

11:25

just random groups of men

11:27

and women who got together to

11:29

resist. These were organized resistance efforts

11:32

that I write about. And many

11:34

of these groups were

11:36

groups before the war. Jewish

11:40

youth in Poland in the 30s

11:42

was organized into youth movements. And

11:44

most, I mean, a huge number

11:46

of young Jewish Poles were

11:48

members of these youth movements. It's a bit

11:50

like the scouts, but more

11:53

so. These were intellectual,

11:55

spiritual, emotional, and social

11:57

training grounds for young

11:59

people. people and they

12:01

weren't to value

12:03

truth and self-awareness

12:06

and self-sufficiency and

12:09

pride in their

12:11

heritage, pride in their

12:13

identity. They also learned

12:15

how to work together.

12:18

They valued collaboration, collectivity,

12:20

egalitarianism, equality, and

12:22

many of them had, even before the

12:24

war, these young people had

12:27

left their homes to

12:30

live together in communes.

12:33

So I think that

12:35

what I'm getting at in this, my long-winded

12:37

answer is that these were

12:40

organized efforts among people who

12:42

had bonds, who trusted each

12:44

other. And I think we

12:46

can learn about that going

12:49

forward too, about how to

12:51

organize and how to think

12:53

through acts of rebellion and

12:55

resistance in the conditions that we

12:57

have. How were

12:59

they able to organize during

13:02

this particular time? Well,

13:04

as I was saying, they were already

13:06

part of these groups. So they

13:09

had a structure to them. They

13:12

already had leadership sort

13:14

of hierarchies and

13:17

groups knew each other. They trusted each

13:19

other. They often lived together, even in

13:21

the ghettos as well. So

13:24

they organized the

13:26

same way that they organized themselves

13:28

before the war. And tell

13:30

us more about what their lives had been like before

13:33

the war and then once they got

13:35

into these ghettos. Very

13:37

interesting 1930s Poland. It was

13:40

a time of both great

13:42

cultural flourishing for the Jewish

13:44

community. There were 180 Jewish

13:48

newspapers in Warsaw

13:51

in the 1930s.

13:53

Art, theater, professorships,

13:55

abounded museums, culture,

13:58

was a really thriving cultural

14:00

community. But there

14:02

was also anti-Semitism, there was also

14:04

a sense of second-class

14:08

citizenry that Jews experienced and

14:10

that they had different, Jews

14:13

had different political

14:15

parties and different values for how

14:17

to handle that. But

14:19

in general, the people I wrote about, many

14:21

of these women, as I said, they not

14:24

only educated up to

14:26

eighth grade, they went to university. Often

14:29

I came across a story about a young

14:32

woman who shot Gestapo men in the

14:34

head and had a history degree from

14:36

Warsaw University. Women

14:39

were educated, they were

14:41

leaders both in the youth movements.

14:44

Women had the vote

14:46

actually in Poland quite early 1918 before many

14:48

Western countries. And

14:51

in general, they lived

14:54

modern European lives. So

14:57

the transition to ghettoization

15:00

was brutal

15:02

and horrific. This

15:04

story really stuck out to you as somebody

15:06

who is a real role model and a

15:09

heroine that we don't know about, but we

15:11

really should. Oh my goodness,

15:13

you can't have a favorite child. Don't

15:18

make me do that. Surprising.

15:22

I mean, they

15:24

were also surprising. I can tell you a

15:29

few, I don't even know who

15:31

to pick. Let me tell you

15:34

about one woman from Kapsletnitska, who

15:36

I've certainly never heard of. She was

15:39

a leader in the youth movements before

15:41

the war. And when

15:43

war hit in 39, she was

15:45

25 years old. And

15:48

like many of the movements, and including

15:50

my grandparents too, she fled east and

15:52

she made it across the border. She

15:54

was in Belarusian territory, so she was

15:56

actually safe. But she was a very good leader. And I

15:59

think that's what I'm going to say. But she couldn't

16:01

take it. Fleeing a crisis didn't

16:03

suit her. She felt so responsible

16:05

to her people that she smuggled

16:07

herself back into Nazi occupied Poland.

16:10

She went to Warsaw. She became a

16:12

leader in the Warsaw ghetto. Again, she

16:14

chose to be there. She

16:18

ran soup kitchens and cultural

16:20

programs and negotiated with

16:22

Jewish and Polish and German leaders.

16:26

She put a kerchief over her face.

16:28

She had very Jewish features, but she tried

16:30

to hide them and travel through the country,

16:33

connecting groups and all these

16:35

ghettos. All

16:38

illegal. She gave lectures in

16:40

these circumstances, bringing hope and

16:43

spirit to people.

16:45

She then brought them news. She

16:48

went around telling the news of

16:50

the Nazi extermination plan, the genocide.

16:53

She told many of the Jewish communities about

16:55

this. She was the first person

16:58

to bring weapons into the Warsaw ghetto.

17:00

She hid them in a sack of

17:02

potatoes, two guns under the potatoes. She

17:05

was stationed in this town of

17:08

South West Poland called Bijin, where

17:10

she led the underground and

17:13

helped them prepare for revolt and

17:15

was killed shooting Nazis from

17:17

a bunker. In

17:19

fact, after the war, she was given

17:21

some military recognition by what was then

17:23

sort of Polish

17:26

leadership. And yet her

17:28

story is completely forgotten. She was

17:30

known as Dimamme in Yiddish, the

17:32

mother among so many of the

17:34

Jews in Poland. That story

17:36

is fascinating. What else? What

17:39

other stories stick out to you? So for

17:41

instance, I mean, I'm really, really,

17:43

I was really taken

17:45

by the story of this one woman, Bella

17:47

Hazan. She was with the underground

17:50

from the get go and they stationed her

17:52

in the town of Grzno. And

17:54

she was going to live on the outside

17:57

because she was going to do a lot

17:59

of courage. and mission work between

18:01

the ghettos. And she

18:04

was pretending 24 hours a day to be Catholic, to

18:08

be a Christian girl. And so she got

18:10

a room in a house and she needed

18:12

to get a job because otherwise it would

18:14

look suspect. So she went to

18:16

the local employment agency and they

18:18

said, we have the perfect job for you. And

18:21

she got a job working as a

18:23

secretary for the Gestapo.

18:26

She worked in their office. She's

18:30

serving them tea and she did some translation

18:32

work for them. And they all knew her.

18:34

She was one of their great employees, but

18:36

what she did was she ended up stealing

18:38

their documents and she would

18:41

bring them to the Jewish underground who had

18:43

these makeshift forgery labs

18:46

where they could copy

18:48

documents, Aryan documents,

18:52

they made fake passports, fake visas, fake

18:54

travel papers, fake ID. So Jews could

18:57

pretend not to be Jewish. I

19:00

mean, she ended up smuggling guns and

19:02

materials across the country. But one

19:05

great story is that she, one of

19:07

the men in the Gestapo office developed

19:09

a romantic, like a crush on her.

19:12

And he invited her to the Christmas party. And

19:15

again, she couldn't say no because that

19:17

would seem suspect or unusual. So

19:20

that night to other careers

19:22

on their own missions, transporting weapons across

19:24

the country were staying with her. So

19:26

all three of these Jewish women dressed

19:29

up as young Christian girls and went

19:31

to a Gestapo Christmas party. And there's

19:33

a photograph in the book of taken

19:36

of them at this Christmas

19:38

party. Oh, wow.

19:40

Wow. I mean, the risks just seem

19:43

unreal. Do you think that

19:45

they were for the most part

19:47

trying to help the greater good

19:49

or was there a desire within

19:52

them to also leave a legacy

19:54

for themselves? What was it? I

19:57

think this was entirely about. rescue.

20:01

And in the cases where they knew they, you

20:03

know, they had no chance they would they were

20:05

a bunch of, you know, starving Jews with two

20:08

guns, we're not going to topple the Nazis. But

20:11

for them, it was about, about

20:13

pride, about pride

20:15

for future generations.

20:18

And, and just about the fight

20:20

for, for, as we said, for

20:22

freedom, for justice for what was

20:24

right, they couldn't just

20:27

stand by. How did

20:30

they handle the fear? It's

20:32

a good question. And I don't know that

20:34

I, you know, it's not something that they

20:37

wrote about. I think

20:39

they, they didn't, they,

20:42

they performed, I

20:44

think it was they were so first of all,

20:46

they were so filled with fury and passion. I

20:49

think the fear was a almost a

20:51

secondary feeling. They,

20:53

many of them, they assume they would be

20:56

killed. They were going on suicide missions. They

20:58

didn't think they'd live. They were

21:01

surprised often when they did live.

21:03

Yeah. So I think that

21:05

they, they were very driven on

21:07

their missions. They, you know, they do

21:09

talk about in some diaries

21:11

of the time about needing to fully

21:15

enrobe and sconce themselves in this

21:17

resistance work, because it actually helped

21:20

them not feel grief, not

21:23

feel that the horrible

21:25

feelings around the deaths of their families

21:27

and the things that they'd witnessed. So

21:29

they were just performing

21:32

this, I mean, you know, 24

21:34

hours a day. I

21:38

was surprised to hear how they were able

21:40

to cope with a lot of this by

21:42

using humor at a time when we never

21:44

really think about coming out

21:46

of this situation. And you talk about

21:48

the story of Lily Rickman, and she

21:51

actually seems like such, such a brave

21:53

and funny young woman who so many

21:55

of us should try to emulate. What

21:58

was her story? She was an ex- example

22:00

of someone who told jokes,

22:02

who told jokes during transports

22:04

to alleviate fear, to tell

22:07

jokes at the camps for to alleviate

22:10

fear and create solidarity

22:13

for herself and for the others

22:15

around her. I think one of the

22:17

lines I recall was she had arrived

22:20

at a camp that

22:22

perhaps it was Auschwitz and they

22:24

shaved the women's hair and

22:26

she said something like, hey, great, free haircuts and

22:28

that was created a sense of control

22:37

and camaraderie

22:40

and humor is the weapon for people

22:42

that don't have weapons. Wow,

22:45

that's a excellent way

22:47

of putting it. What was your reaction

22:49

when you found that Steven Spielberg wanted

22:51

to option the book for a

22:53

major motion picture? I was extremely

22:56

excited. When might that

22:58

come out? Well, this

23:00

has very early stages. So we're just

23:02

starting to work on the screenplay now.

23:04

So I don't

23:06

know. Fingers crossed when

23:09

you look at the stories of

23:11

these remarkable women, you look at

23:13

how their lives were and I'm

23:15

wondering, do you think you could

23:17

have done what they did? No,

23:19

I don't. And of

23:21

course, I thought about that all the time, reading

23:24

about them, writing about them. Would I have done

23:26

this? Could I have done this? And I don't

23:29

think so. I think that's why I became

23:31

so fascinated by them.

23:33

So obsessed by these figures, they felt

23:35

like they could do something that I

23:38

could and they were so different for

23:40

me and that's part of what drew

23:42

me to them. As you know,

23:44

the name of our show is Nobody Told Me. So we

23:47

ask our guests at the end of

23:49

each show, what is your Nobody Told

23:51

Me lesson? So what did

23:53

nobody tell you about having courage

23:56

and honor and bravery that you

23:58

didn't learn you learned

24:00

about the ghetto girls? Hmm,

24:02

that's a good question. I think it's just

24:04

that as I said earlier, when I went

24:07

into this, I was thinking so much about

24:09

how trauma passes through

24:11

generations, how difficulties pass

24:14

through generations. And

24:16

I come out of this, or

24:18

I'm coming out of this, thinking

24:21

how at the same time, strength

24:23

passes through generations, bravery and courage,

24:26

and positive traits and

24:28

attributes as well. I feel

24:30

like nobody told me that I could

24:33

think about the positive elements

24:35

that have passed on in my

24:37

heritage. Did you

24:39

feel in some sense that these women

24:41

were sort of sitting on your shoulder

24:43

helping you write the stories? You

24:46

know, I felt they were sitting on my

24:48

shoulder. But I always feel like more like

24:50

make sure you're telling the story correctly. I,

24:54

you know, I felt

24:56

a great duty to tell

24:58

their stories, and to do

25:00

so in as fair

25:03

and complex and

25:05

nuanced a way as I could. I,

25:09

you know, I did feel the whole like, if

25:11

I don't tell this story of Frumpkopla Knitska that

25:13

I found in some Yiddish documents from the 1940s,

25:16

I mean, who will? Yeah, yeah.

25:19

Yeah. So there's a great responsibility

25:21

there. How can people connect

25:23

with you on social media and the internet if they'd

25:25

like to find out more about your work? Sure.

25:28

My website is

25:30

judybitalian.com. And I'm

25:33

on Instagram, Twitter, and

25:35

Facebook at Judy battalion. Super.

25:38

And the book is also available in

25:40

a version for young people, isn't it?

25:42

Yes, there's a young readers

25:44

edition geared at children ages 10

25:46

to 14. Oh, that's great.

25:49

That's wonderful. Well, Judy, we thank

25:51

you so much for joining us. Thank

25:53

you so much for having me. Again, our

25:55

thanks to Judy battalion whose latest book

25:57

is called the light of days. the

26:00

untold story of women resistance fighters

26:03

in Hitler's ghettos. And again, her

26:05

website is Judy battalion.com We

26:08

wish you the best of luck Judy with the book and we can't

26:10

wait to see the movie Thank you

26:12

so much. I'm Jan Black

26:14

and I'm Laura Owen. You're listening to Nobody

26:16

Told Me. Thank you so much for joining

26:18

us You