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March
WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH

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Mothers, daughters, housewives, physicians, teachers, athletes—women of all ages and backgrounds were confronted with the horrors of the Holocaust.

The Nazis subjected women, both Jewish and non-Jewish, to unique and brutal persecution. Individual camps and certain areas within concentration camps were designated specifically for women. Often, women, especially those with small children, were the first to be "selected" for gassing at killing centers.

In both camps and ghettos, women were particularly vulnerable to beatings and rape. Pregnant Jewish women often tried to conceal their pregnancies or were forced to submit to abortions.




Hana Mueller Bruml
Play video
Hana Mueller Bruml
Describes arrival procedures at Auschwitz [1990 interview]

Some women were leaders or members of ghetto resistance organizations. Others were active in camp armed resistance. Women responded to Nazi oppression in various ways. This Special Focus page highlights the feelings and actions of women during the Nazi era.


Simone Weil kept this blank identification card bearing her picture in case her cover as 'Simone Werlin' were blown and she needed to establish a new false identity.

 Simone Weil kept this blank identification card bearing her picture in case her cover as "Simone Werlin" were blown and she needed to establish a new false identity. Both resistance workers and sympathetic government employees provided her the necessary stamps and signatures. Such forged documents assisted Weil in her work rescuing Jewish children as a member of the relief and rescue organization Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants (Children's Aid Society; OSE). United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Collections
See Artifacts
Links:
Women

Ravensbrueck

Jewish Parachutists from Palestine

Women in the Third Reich

Lesbians and the Third Reich

Corrie ten Boom

Annotated Bibliographies
(USHMM Library)

Web sites focused on the experiences of women during the Holocaust
(USHMM Library's Web Links)


Jewish women at forced labor in a sewing workshop. Lodz ghetto, Poland, between 1940 and 1944.
Jewish women at forced labor in a sewing workshop. Lodz ghetto, Poland, between 1940 and 1944. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum #74528/Juedisches Museum Frankfurt am Main
See photographs


Jewish parachutist Hannah Szenes at Kibbutz Sedot Yam, a communal agricultural settlement. Palestine, 1941.
Jewish parachutist Hannah Szenes at Kibbutz Sedot Yam, a communal agricultural settlement. Palestine, 1941. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum #83592/Beit Hannah Szenes
See photographs


Who was this woman?
Who was this woman?
Find out more about the investigation into one woman's life and fate.