“Parliaments of Mothers and Sisters”: Jewish Women’s Social Service in the Warsaw Ghetto Cover Image

„Parlamenty matek i sióstr”. Żydowska Żeńska Służba Społeczna w getcie warszawskim
“Parliaments of Mothers and Sisters”: Jewish Women’s Social Service in the Warsaw Ghetto

Author(s): Agnieszka Żółkiewska
Subject(s): Jewish studies, Local History / Microhistory, WW II and following years (1940 - 1949)
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: getto warszawskie; Koła Pań; Żeńska Służba Społeczna; Żydowska Samopomoc Społeczna; Komitety Domowe; Warsaw Ghetto; Women’s Circles; Women’s Social Service; Jewish Social Self-Help; House Committees

Summary/Abstract: The article explores a broad range of social and aid activities of Jewish women in the Warsaw Ghetto under the aegis of the Jewish Organization for Social Care, known as Jewish Social Self-Help (JSS). Due to hard living conditions, those women were forced into increased outside activities, as well as taking protective actions in aid of strangers, individuals, and families alike. They founded women’s clubs in every house, alongside with many public soup kitchens, common rooms, day care centers and so-called children’s corners, the staff of which would consist mainly of women. All these facilities together formed the largest chain of self-help centers, next to the numerous ghetto House Committees.

  • Issue Year: 24/2021
  • Issue No: 48
  • Page Range: 473-489
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: Polish