Women and the Holocaust: Courage and Compassion

Women and the Holocaust: Courage and Compassion 19
At a certain point, some who had lost their families, found some consolation in caring for others.
They risked their lives and health by treating contagious patients and children in hiding places. Many
went to their death with the children although they could have been saved. They toiled from morning
to night as the situation deteriorated with each passing moment, not allowing their physical weakness
to abate their efforts. Stefania Wilczynska was Dr. Janusz Korczak’s deputy. Together they ran
the Warsaw Jewish orphanage. In a letter sent to her friends in Palestine, she wrote: “My dear, we are
well. I work a little at the orphanage while Korczak is doing a great deal. I have not arrived because
I do not want to go without the children”. 2 Wilczynska and Korczak were given a choice not to join
the children’s deportation, but they refused, and went together with them to the gas chambers.
ENDNOTES
1 Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, Do Not Raise Your Hand Against the Boy (Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel: Miskal - Yedioth,
2005).
2 Yehudit Inbar, Spots of Light: To Be a Woman in the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2007).
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What was expected of women prior to the Holocaust?
2. How were some women able to help others in the ghettos?
3. What types of dilemmas did women face regarding their children?
4. Why would some women care for other peoples’ children?