Forgotten Feminism: Poland in the 1930s
Just weeks after submitting my laboriously-conceived dissertation on women’s collaborative art stemming from California in the 1970s, I stumbled on my next obsession and a new understanding of feminist history–one that would take me back to pre-war Poland.
It began when I haphazardly discovered another piece of women’s history. Grappling with my own Jewish identity, I had decided to write a creative piece about strong Jewish women. The first to come to mind was someone I’d studied in 5th grade: Hanna Senesh, a young WW2 resistance paratrooper who was caught but looked the Nazis in the eye when they shot her; she was the symbol of courage, the only such woman I’d ever heard of. But who was she, really?
I went to the British Library, looked her up in the catalog, and ordered the few books listed under her name. One was Freuen in di Ghettos (Women in the Ghettos), old and rare and in Yiddish, a language I happened to know. I flipped through the yellowing pages looking for Hanna Senesh, but she was only in the last chapter. Before her — dozens of young Jewish women who defied the Nazis. These “ghetto girls” hid revolvers in teddy bears, flirted with Gestapo guards, bribed Nazis with wine, whiskey and pastry, and shot and killed them. They helped the sick and taught the children; they flung Molotov cocktails and bombed German supply trains; they carried out espionage missions for the Red Army; they distributed underground bulletins and were bearers of the truth about what was happening to the Jews.
I was astonished. How could I — with a background in women’s history and who came from a Holocaust survivor family — not know this story? And how were these women, these ultimate feminists, raised and trained? Their bold confidence, cosmopolitan natures, literary passions and bright-red lipstick did not jive with my stereotypical idea of Jewish Poland in the 1930s. i.e. Fiddler on the Roof. What kind of society, then, had created these extraordinary and stylish women? (Not to mention my surprise that in 1940s New York, where this book was published, gender was substantial enough an issue to merit an anthology.)
These questions led me to write two books that explored the period: The Light of Days, the true story of Jewish women who fought the Nazis, and then a novel, The Last Woman of Warsaw, a story about young Jewish women navigating the dynamic world of Warsaw in the 1930s.
“Feminism” was not a popular term at the time, but forms of feminism that we’d recognize today were alive in Poland in the 1930s. The Catholic Church still reigned strong, but alongside traditional notions of gender, women in Poland held progressive roles, spurred on by the positivist education philosophy and World War I, which had pushed them into employment.
Elementary education was mandatory, including for girls. Universities were open to female students. Polish women received the vote in 1918, before most Western countries. Nationalist programs prized physical culture and valued female athleticism. Women wore fitted blazers and shorter skirts (the whole shoe showed!, they mocked at the time), comfortable pumps, and short hairdos. I found archives filled with photos from fashion shows that took place all over Warsaw; runways were set up in hotels, cafes and boating clubs.
Jewish communities — many of which were not based in decrepit backwaters as we might imagine but thriving cultural hubs — also felt feminist leanings. Though women were not allowed to vote for the Jewish Community Council that ruled the community, they had individual freedoms and ambitions.
In Western Europe, Jewish families were mostly middle class and constrained by broader bourgeois mores, with women relegated to the domestic realm. But in the East, most Jews were poor, and out of necessity, women worked outside the home — especially in religious circles, where it was acceptable for men to study rather than toil. Jewish women were enmeshed in the public sphere: in 1931, 44.5 percent of Jewish wage earners were female, though they earned less than men. The average marriage age was pushed back to the late twenties, even thirties, mainly due to poverty. This resulted in declining fertility and even more women in the workplace. (To some degree, their work-life balance resembled modern gender norms.)
Centuries earlier, Jewish women in Poland had been accorded “the right to know.” The invention of the printing press led to a proliferation of Yiddish and Hebrew books for female readers; religious rulings allowed women to attend services; new synagogue architecture included a female annex. Now, Jewish women were poets, novelists, journalists, traders, lawyers, and dentists. In universities, Jews made up a large percentage of the female students, studying mainly the humanities and science. The Yiddish Scientific Institute in Vilna (YIVO) held writing contests for young Jewish men and women; a brief read through these and other memoirs of the time reveals many teenage girls who hoped to become doctors.
Many of the Jewish resistance networks that rebelled against the Nazis emerged from pre-war youth movements. Affiliated with the various Jewish political parties, these youth groups that flourished in the 1930s, were like the scouts, but more so. They provided existential paths and hope for the future, functioning as physical, emotional, and spiritual training grounds. While most political parties were undoubtedly not “feminist” — for Zionists, for instance, women did not hold public office — young women experienced a degree of parity in the youth realm, particularly in Socialist Zionist groups that promoted collective living, agricultural self-sufficiency, and personal responsibility. One such youth group, The Young Guard (Hashomer Hatzair), founded the idea of the “intimate group.” Each unit had a dual leadership structure. Each section was led by a man and a woman. “Father” was the learning leader, and “Mother,” the emotional leader; equally powerful, they complemented one another. In this family model, “their children” were like siblings.
These groups studied Marx and Freud and were interested in psychoanalysis and psychology. They advocated emotional discussion and analyses of interpersonal relationships. Members were primarily in their late teens, an age where many women were more mature than the men and, consequently, became organizers. Women led self-defense training; they were taught to be socially conscious, self-possessed, and strong. Countless photos of 1930s youth show women standing alongside men, dressed in similar dark coats and belts, or work clothes and pants; they too hold up scythes like trophies and grasp sickles like swords, preparing for lives of hard manual labor. Or, as even they never imagined, for sabotaging Nazis.
I could now argue that these 1930s Polish women – the protagonists in my new novel – were foundational feminists; but they did not see themselves that way. Along with Chen Duxiu and Andre Malraux, these women studied and were directly inspired by their own foremothers, female revolutionaries like Rosa Luxemburg and Emma Goldman. The lineage is long, stretching into the horizon.
— Judy Batalion is the author of New York Times Bestseller The Light Of Days and other books of award-winning nonfiction. Her debut novel, The Last Woman of Warsaw, was published by Dutton/Penguin in April 2026.