The concept of the “intimate group” which originated with Ha-Shomer ha-Za’ir and was emulated by many other Jewish youth movements also strengthened the girls‘ status in another respect. Personal relationships between the members of the group were openly discussed and enhanced the status of the plus girls as indispensable members of the intimate group. Again, it seems that the relative maturity of the girls, together with the emphasis on their emotional importance within the group, reinforced their role within the group.
While doing so, new intimate group performed such as for instance children, which in fact had just their “brothers” and you can “sisters” as well as their “father” and you can “mom.” These were a man and you may female teens chief respectively, which depicted parental rates into students.
Examination of a few exact same-many years single-sex groups of boys and you will girls just who mutual numerous things reveals that the household members framework was also preserved within this formation
These characteristics of Jewish teens path, using society of one’s revolutionary woman, was indeed relocated to new Jewish youth groups from inside the Holocaust.
Abba Kovner (C) and Vitka Kempner-Kovner (R), Rozka Korczak-Marla (L), people in this new Jewish Resistance when you look at the Poland, envisioned brand new liberation off Vilna within the July 1944. Due to Yad Vashem, Jerusalem.
This new Jewish youthfulness moves proceeded a majority of their book situations during the initial age World war ii (1939–1942). They look having already been solid and you can active, better modified to your the new facts of your own ghettos than simply adult groups. In certain of your own ghettos, their full craft flourished, occasionally surpassing regarding the pre-conflict months.
The individual youngsters way communities supported since the an effective fraternity otherwise small loved ones in which a difficult appeal, preferred so you can both sexes on classification, are a vital factor
The role of women in this activity was significant from the very first days of the war and the German occupation. Just before the war some movements (Ha-Shomer ha-Za’ir and Dror-Freiheit) established an alternative leadership (Hanhagah Bet), comprised mostly of women, in case the male leaders were conscripted to the Polish army. Although these alternative leaderships functioned only partially in the first chaotic months of the occupation, the promotion of women into leading roles soon became evident. The first delegates to the German-occupied area of Poland (from Vilna and Russian-occupied Poland) were women: Frumka Plotniczki, Zivia Lubetkin (Dror-Freiheit, Warsaw) and Tosia Altman (Ha-Shomer ha-Za’ir, Warsaw).
During this time period (1940–1942) of many branches of the young people actions was in fact contributed of the feminine, or provided female otherwise girls in the regional as well as the central leadership. Indeed, not one ghetto leaders lacked at least one important woman.
The ongoing occupation and the ghettos necessitated the creation of a new functionary: an emissary or delegate (shelihah/shaliah – also referred to as kashariyot) of the central leadership. This role was filled mainly by females because of the danger of the “circumcision test” at German checkpoints. However, the delegates of the central movement who traveled illegally from ghetto to ghetto were not mere mail carriers delivering messages and underground press from Warsaw to the provinces. They had to remain at their destination for several days or weeks in order to discuss ideological and educational matters with the local leadership, oversee local educational activity, plan and lead theoretical seminars for the older members of the branch, etc. In short, they had to personally represent the central leadership, its ideas, programs and operations. The shelihah functioned much more like a high-ranking staff officer in a military organization than as an underground courier. Four major shelihot were Frumka Plotniczki, Gusta Dawidson (Akiva, Cracow), Tosia Altman and Haika Grosman (Ha-Shomer ha-Za’ir, Bialystok), all of whom were in leading positions in their movements and acted as authorized representatives of the central leadership.
