Women of Valor

by Joanne D Gilbert

[nannah]

Women of Valor is a book containing the accounts of four Jewish Women from Poland and how they fought against the Nazis in any way they can during the Holocaust. It's definitely worth reading for those accounts, but the book has a very strange emphasis on making sure the audience knows how important some Gentiles were to these Jewish survivors. So much so that I (who isn't a Jewish person myself) felt uncomfortable.

It may be important to note this was written in 2004. The epilogue states how wonderful it is that these women have survived to see Poland overcome its past antisemitism and see its government work to implement laws and rules to preserve some of its Jewish culture and history, etc. etc. etc.

And it seems to be a theme throughout the book: Gentiles helping Jewish people.

Maybe that was the case for 2004 (and don't quote me on that; I'm not an expert in this), but that's definitely not the case for what's going on in Poland now in 2018. In Poland now the rising right-wing government has made it illegal for people to even speak about the antisemitism of its gentiles during the Holocaust. There's propaganda ads playing on Youtube and other sites. Poland is literally doing all it can to cover up any antisemitism and everything it did to contribute to what happened to its Jewish people during the Holocaust.

So while this book was worthwhile to read for its genuine accounts, it had to be read a bit carefully whenever the author intervened with her (perhaps outdated??) personal opinions.