It is not easy to choose the last woman for this series, “8 Days Honoring 8 Female Fighters”, given that there are so many incredible women I would like to honor (and I am sure many more have been unrecorded and completely forgotten). Still, the one I chose won’t disappoint.
Niuta Teitelbaum was born in Warsaw in 1917 to a religious Jewish family. She grew up in Łódź and studied history at Warsaw University.
I could not find more information about her youth or other personal details about her interests and personality.
But from the little we know about her, she is the epitome of courage.
She famously declared,
“I am a Jew, my place is in the struggle against the Nazis for the honor of my people and for a free Poland!”
Niuta was one of the first volunteers for the Polish underground soon after the Germans marched into Warsaw in October 1939. She worked for the People’s Army ( a Soviet-supported partisan group set up by the Polish Workers’ Party) and ŻOB ( Jewish Fighting Organization).
In the Warsaw ghetto, she trained women to use the weapons she helped smuggle in and organized a women’s unit of Ghetto fighters.
She was a twenty-two-year-old woman who wore her blond hair in pigtails or braids, making her look like an innocent sixteen-year-old girl serving as a perfect disguise in her missions hunting Nazis.
Niuta displayed incredible ingenuity, absolute fearlessness, and unshakable determination. With her looks, dress-up, flirtatious, sweet talk, and a silenced pistol, she gained close access to Nazi officers and shot them to death.
Once, Niuta walked into a Gestapo apartment in the middle of Warsaw and killed two Nazi officers, leaving a third one injured.
However, there was more to her mission.
She located the hospital the officer was taken to, found a physician’s coat, and pretended to be a doctor; she shot and killed the Nazi and the police officer on guard.
The Gestapo did not know her name; they called her “Little Wanda with the Braids” and placed her on their most-wanted list for almost three years.
Niuta was one of the few fighters to survive the devastating Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the destruction of the Ghetto.
She was hiding in Warsaw, awaiting the end of the war. Sadly, the Gestapo stormed into her room on a fateful day in July 1943. She was captured, tortured, and killed.
Niuta was twenty-five years old.
To the Germans, she was Little Wanda with the Braids.
To the Polish underground, she was celebrated as the Heroine of Warsaw.
To me, she embodies strength and bravery, a source of inspiration and pride.
I vow to honor her memory by living a life with the values and principles she died for.
For there is nothing more sacred than life itself. And that is something worth fighting for.
To Niuta and all the brave women in this series, and all the brave women all there.
May we know them. May we be them.
