Jump to content

Niuta Tajtelbaum

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Niuta Tajtelbaum
Born
Ryfka Tajtelbaum

(1917-10-31)October 31, 1917
DiedJuly 1943(1943-07-00) (aged 25)
Other namesWanda, Wanda Witwicka

Niuta Tajtelbaum (31 October 1917 – July 1943) was a Jewish resistance fighter in Warsaw, Poland, during World War II.[1][2]

Niuta Tajtelbaum was born as Ryfka Tajtelbaum on October 31, 1917, in Łódź. Her father was Icek Majer Taitelbaum, a factory owner.[3] During the war, she was a courier for the Jewish Combat Organization and the Communist Gwardia Ludowa (GL).[4] She also smuggled weapons and people.[5] As a resistance fighter, she was "known to braid her hair, dress up as a Polish peasant girl, and enter homes and offices in disguise to kill Nazis".[6] In 1943, Teitelbaum shot five Nazi soldiers in one day.[7] She was wanted by the Gestapo, which placed a bounty of 150,000 złotys on her head.[8][9] She was a member of the "Spetzgruppe" (special unit) that bombed a cinema frequented by Nazi soldiers in Warsaw on 17 January 1943. Tajtelbaum was captured by the Nazis on 19 July 1943, tortured, and killed.[10][11]

Tajtelbaum's story was told in the 2021 book The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos by Judy Batalion.[7][12]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Mahoney, M. H. (1993). Women in Espionage: A Biographical Dictionary. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-87436-743-0.
  2. ^ Bard, Mitchell Geoffrey (2001). The Complete History of the Holocaust. Greenhaven Press. ISBN 978-0-7377-0373-3.
  3. ^ "Tajtelbaum Niuta | Virtual Shtetl". sztetl.org.pl. Retrieved 2024-02-26.
  4. ^ "A cemetery of letters and words". Haaretz.
  5. ^ Kopel, David B. (16 February 2017). The Morality of Self-Defense and Military Action: The Judeo-Christian Tradition. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-4408-3278-9.
  6. ^ "How Jewish women fought back against the Nazis during a 1943 uprising in Poland". cbc.ca.
  7. ^ a b Batalion, Judy (18 March 2021). "The Nazi-Fighting Women of the Jewish Resistance". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
  8. ^ The National Jewish Monthly. B'nai B'rith. 1965.
  9. ^ Roland, Paul (2017-07-11). The Jewish Resistance: Uprisings against the Nazis in World War II. Arcturus Publishing. ISBN 978-1-78828-463-9.
  10. ^ "'I am a Jew. My place is in the struggle against the Nazis for the honour of my people and for a free Poland': the little-known story of the female assassin who terrorised the Nazis". www.thefirstnews.com.
  11. ^ "Niuta Tajtelbaum, Jewish Communist and Member of the Polish Armia Ludowa Underground in Warsaw". Ghetto Fighters House Archives. IDEA Information Systems. 2009. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
  12. ^ Karpieszuk, Wojciech (23 March 2021). "Żydowska bojowniczka zabijała w Warszawie gestapowców. Nieznaną historię opisał "New York Times"". Retrieved 10 June 2021.

Further reading

[edit]