Partisanas: Women in the Armed Resistance to Fascism and German Occupation (1936-1945)

Looking beyond the passive roles of feeding, nursing and hiding male partisans, journalist and film maker Strobel interviewed women who took an active role, in gun running, bombings and assassination. The result was a 1989 book in German that told the stories of women in the Spanish Civil War and Nazi occupied Europe who took up arms, killed and often died horribly as resistance fighters. This first English translation is preceded by a preface by Martha Ackelsberg that points out flaws in the original. Ackelsberg states that Stobel ignored the bravery of women who did not shoot their enemies and that only one of the resistance groups in Spain was profiled. In a new introduction, Stobel answers this critique with a summary of work done since 1989 on, particularly, women who saved Jewish children. A large part of this study tells of Jewish resistance in the Polish ghettos and France. A section on the Communist resistance fighters under Tito in Carinthia is particularly notable as little has been written about them in the West. Most of the women interviewed became traditional wives and mothers and were surprised that anyone cared about what they had done. The unspoken question of whether these women were freedom fighters or terrorists runs through the text and resonates today. Annotation c2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)