I spent a summer researching and writing my Honors Thesis on Jewish Women’s Acts of Bravery During the Holocaust. I became fascinated with the topic and completely in awe of these women.
In those two or three months of intense reading about these young women, their names and stories became so familiar to me; they became alive in my mind like they were friends from a long time ago.
I would catch myself thinking, “ This Zivia is such a boss,” or “I really like Renia’s personality,” or I would imagine two blond girls dressed fashionably carrying weapons in secret pockets in their bags, strolling casually in the streets of Warsaw.
One of these girls, a name that pops into my mind when I think about female resistance in the Holocaust, is Tosia Altman.
Tosia (Taube) Altman was born on August 24, 1919 in Lipno, Poland. She grew up in Wloclawek, where her father worked as a watchmaker and sold watches and jewelry. Culture and Zionism were strong family values, and her father was significantly involved in communal affairs.
Tosia was a Polish Jewish “it girl.” Fashionable and well-educated. A bookworm, yet flirtatious with many boyfriends. She was always laughing and made friends quickly. However, she had her own fears of dogs and darkness, which she faced head-on by purposefully leaving her house during a pogrom to beat her anxiety.
Like many Polish Jewish youths at the time, she attended the youth movement Hashomer Hatzair, became a youth leader, and in 1938 was getting kibbutz training with plans to emigrate to Israel.
Soon, she was chosen to lead the educational efforts of the movement in Warsaw, and that new responsibility delayed her plan of moving to the holy land.
Like many living in war-devastated Poland, those dreams were shattered.
Forever.
With the Nazi invasion of Poland and the orders to evacuate Warsaw that followed, Tosia left on a journey eastward, primarily by foot, arriving in Rovno, today a city in western Ukraine.
Still hoping to escape Europe, Tosia and many other movement leaders headed to Vilna, Lithuania, but their illegal attempts at emigration would prove unsuccessful.
The movement leadership seemed to be safe for the moment. However, they could not bear the thought that youth members were left alone in Nazi-occupied territory to fend for themselves.
They needed someone with the appropriate looks, skills, and courage to return to the lion’s den. They chose Tosia.
She had not yet recovered from her long journey, and although she had family in Vilna who would assist her, she did not hesitate to return. The trip was dangerous, and multiple attempts were made to cross the Soviet and German borders until she arrived at war-stricken Warsaw.
Once back, she did not waste time. She began gathering youth members and recreating the movement and its branches. As other leaders arrived to support the activities, Tosia started traveling to other cities in defiance of the prohibition of Jews from boarding trains. In every town, she encouraged members to participate in educational and social activities.
Once the population of Warsaw was confined to the Ghetto, moving around became even more difficult. She could no longer rely on her blond hair and perfect Polish. Polish civilians were out on the streets looking for fake Aryans, and documents were scrutinized more closely.
One misstep could bring her to certain death.
She went on these missions for two years. Dealing with Nazi soldiers, Polish police, civilian informants, and border control was just part of a day’s work.
Due to Tosia’s travels, she witnessed the broader Jewish fate in Europe. The ghettoization, deportations, and murder of Jews were not local; they were systematic, centralized, and carefully carried out plans to exterminate the Jewish people.
She spread this message everywhere: It is time to raise arms and fight.
When the Jewish Fighting Organization (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa, or ZOB) was established, Tosia was sent to the Aryan side to obtain support and weapons from the Polish underground Armia Krajowa (AK) and the Armia Ludowa (Communist). They offered little help, but Tosia and other women could obtain hand grenades and other weapons and smuggle them back into the Ghetto.
Soon after, life in the Ghetto became even more unbearable. Most Jews have been deported and killed, and out of six hundred thousand residents of the Ghetto, only fifty to sixty survived. Some leaders were captured and killed, and smuggled weapons were discovered by the Nazis, who were determined to lure every Jew out of hiding and into the trains.
Tosia did not stop.
She continued traveling to other ghettos, looking for arms and saving young people from deportation along the way. Tosia arrived in Krakow, where she helped merge the efforts of the movements He-Haluz ha-Lohem and the Iskra (Spark) fighting organization, assisted by the Polish Workers Party.
On January 18, 1943, Tosia returned to the Ghetto as the ZOB ( Jewish Fighting Organization) breathed his last breaths. Tosia was captured and taken to the Umschlagplatz, a gathering place where people awaited deportation.
She was saved by a member of the Jewish police who had ties with her movement, the Shomer Hatzair.
She continued searching and obtaining weapons from criminals or the Polish underground, who, by now, decided to offer more support to the Jewish uprisings.
April 18, 1943, was a fateful date. The Jewish revolt broke out. Like in the times of Hannukah, the small Jewish underground in the Ghetto was surrounded by the German military and the Polish police.
This time around, there was no miracle of victory of the weak against the mighty. There were no weak people. On the contrary, these last freedom fighters were one of the strongest, most relentless, and most courageous people.
On the third day of the revolt, the Nazis began to set the Ghetto on fire.
Altman went on rescue missions to help fighters trapped in the burning buildings. The fighting continued, but the fire blocked the exit from the bunkers.
There was only one way out.
Through the sewers.
One group made it out safely. The second group, about three hundred of the last fighters, were crowded in insurmountable conditions in the bunker, awaiting their confirmation to proceed with the escape route.
The Nazis discovered the bunker and started pumping gas into it to force the fighters out of hiding. Only six came out, but not into the Germans’ hands.
Tosia and five others survived the gases and made their way through the filthy sewers, finding an opening that brought them to the Aryan side.
Tosia and her fellow comrades were hiding in an attic of a factory. Tragically, a fire broke out in the attic and spread quickly. A few comrades managed to jump off the building and escape.
Tosia, who was badly burned, tried to jump out but could not fight the flames. It is estimated that she died in a hospital, untreated, on May 26, 1943.
She was 23 years old.
To Tosia and all the brave women all there. May we know them. May we be them.
