b'BC_5782_2021final_cmyk_Layout 18/8/219:46 AMPage 4INTRODUCTIONIn 2007, the writer, performance artist and art historian Judy Batalion was in the British Library, doing research for aperformance she was writing about female Jewish identity. She was looking for information about Hannah Senesh, a PolishJewish resistance fighter in World War II. Among other books, she was given a long-forgotten book in Yiddish called Freuenin di Ghettos (Women in the Ghettos), which she expected would make for very dry reading. Instead, she discovered a thriller.It contained the stories of dozens of female resistance fighters, whose remarkable daring, ingenuity and accomplishments hadbeen largely lost to history.The publication in 2020 of Batalions book The Light of Days, based on what she found in that book and on her further researchthat uncovered dozens of other memoirs and accounts, has occasioned a reexamination of the role of women in the resistance.Their efforts were long thought, with comparatively few exceptions, to be secondary to those of menwhen in fact womenwere instrumental in facilitating the escape from the ghettos and the survival of many Jews; killed Nazis; carried out spymissions; and took a host of other actions as part of the resistance. This stands in sharp contrast to the typical earlier portrayal of women in the resistance, which typically described women asmeek, passive, and girlfriends of the male fighters.Women were well suited to serve in the resistance. Men carried a physical marker of their Jewishness in the form of theircircumcision, whereas women who didnt look Jewish were physically indistinguishable from gentiles. In Poland, manyJewish boys were educated at religious schools, while girls went to public schools. As a result, many women were more readilyable to speak without a Yiddish accent in Polishwhich they listened to assiduously and assimilated in order not to givethemselves away.Resistance movements were widespread, taking place in many cities and even in a number of concentration camps. Of course,resistance efforts made only the smallest dent in the Nazi oppression; the resistance was vastly outnumbered and outgunned,overwhelmed by the size, might and organization of the German forces. But it did succeed at saving the lives of thousandswho likely would not otherwise have survived, and it was also a powerful expression of the urge to fight for survival in theface of genocide.'