The Ghetto Fighters’ House invites you to a special online book launch of Heroines of the Holocaust: Reframing Resistance and Courage in Genocide.

Join co-editors Professor Lori Weintrob and Professor Judy Baumel-Schwartz as they introduce this groundbreaking volume, which brings together international scholars to explore new perspectives on women’s rescue and resistance during the Holocaust, and the Armenian and Rwandan genocides.

Two contributing authors, both descendants of Holocaust survivors, will also share insights from their chapters:

Dr Daniela Ozacky Stern delves into the often-overlooked stories of Jewish women partisans during the Holocaust, focusing on the personal narrative of Chaya Shapira Lazar. Through her grandmother’s journey from the Vilna Ghetto to the partisan forests, Dr Ozacky Stern illuminates the complex challenges faced by female resistance fighters navigating between traditional gender roles and revolutionary combat duties.

Dr Steven Meed, son of Vladka Meed (née Feyge Peltel), reflects on his mother’s extraordinary courage as an 18-year-old member of the Bund’s youth organisation in Warsaw during the German invasion of 1939. Recognised for her fearlessness, resourcefulness, and perfect command of Polish, Vladka was entrusted with increasingly dangerous missions on the Aryan side. After liberation, she dedicated her life to speaking and writing—first in Yiddish—about her wartime experiences, ensuring the memory of those who perished and survived would endure with dignity and respect.

This event is presented in partnership with the Wagner College Holocaust Center, the Arnold and Leona Finkler Institute of Holocaust Research at Bar-Ilan University, Remember the Women Institute, the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre, Classrooms Without Borders, and the Rabin Chair Forum.