Resistance by Nechama Tec

their heads, they undertake the most threatening missions without any objections, without a moment’s hesitation. . . . They recognize no obstacles.” Ringelblum praised the conduct of all Jewish women, but he felt that the couriers stood out for their selfless dedication to the Jewish people. 1
    As discussed, the enforced isolation of the Jews had automatically made women more strategic to Jewish underground movements. Jewish males, because of circumcision, were in much greater danger on the Aryan side. Women’s readiness to take on a variety of resistance jobs stemmed from their awareness that these risks were even greater for Jewish men. This in part accounts for the higher proportion of Jewish female couriers in both the East and the West. In general, women were less likely to be suspected of political transgressions than men. When asked to compare the threats faced by women and men, Thea Epstein, a Jewish courier in southern France, replied, “It was harder for men. A man had no right to be in the city, to move around; he was supposed to be employed in work that exempted him from military service. Or he had to study or to be in the army.” 2 Another young woman, a Jewish courier who had been in a communist resistance group in France, admitted that being a girl helped her. “I took advantage of this fact.”
    â€œWhat were these advantages?” I asked.
    â€œWell, for instance, when there was a control of the baggage in a bus the Germans had a tendency to pass a smiling young girl; perhaps a pretty girl could use her seductiveness. . . . It was simply difficult to imagine that I was doing what I was doing with the way I looked. I didn’t look like a scout. It’s a good question, but I never before thought about it.” 3
    Jewish female couriers functioned as the glue that held an underground together. Born in Poland, Leah Silverstein’s life experiences illustrate these functions ( figure 5.1 ). When Leah was five, her mother died in 1928 in Praga, a suburb of Warsaw. She had two older brothers, her father, and two sets of grandparents. Four years after Leah’s mother died, her father remarried, which led to a string of painful experiences. As the youngest member of her family, Leah was particularly vulnerable. She recalls that, as in the fairy tales, her stepmother was wicked. “She was truly wicked. At one point she tore up all my schoolbooks, which I treasured. I liked to study. I loved school. We ended up fighting each other physically.”
    Her father’s passivity and her stepmother’s behavior threatened Leah’s safety. Help came from her maternal grandmother, an intelligent and deeply religious woman. She invited Leah to share her modest apartment. Despite their poverty, the old woman and the young girl felt comfortable with the life they shared. Leah continued to study diligently. She completed elementary school and dreamt about attending high school, though in Poland at the time enrollment into high school cost money and no one in the family had the necessary resources. Leah heard about a contest in which young girls could compete for two free places in one of the local high schools. She entered this contest and won one of the prizes. For the next two years, she attended, free of charge, the Zydowskie Gymnasium. For Leah, this was a dream come true.
    She continued to live happily with her grandmother. Most of their neighbors and friends were poor, yet poverty in no way interfered with their extensive participation in a wide range of political and cultural pastimes. A large proportion of these local youths belonged to the Jewish Scout association, and a variety of Zionist organizations, especially Hashomer Hatzair. Many of these local groups had close ties to the liberal Polish Christian Scouts Association. Leah’s Orthodox grandmother encouraged her granddaughter’s participation in all these diverse activities. Leah would often express