W.HO. - She was a Survivor and a Rebel

W.H.O is a series I do on my blog, where I highlight certain women from history who have made an impact on me. Most of them are unheard of or were immensely popular in their day, but have faded in to obscurity. It is my conviction that the her-stories of this world are more celebrated and told. So today I would like to introduce you to someone who is super fascinating and personally, very inspiring.

This past week, on the 19th of April the "world" remembers the tragic, but truly brave Warsaw Ghetto uprising during the second world war. Hitler and the Nazi's had built Jewish ghetto's throughout Poland from as early as 1939. Jewish ghetto's were formed to keep the Jewish people segregated from what was considered the pure "Aryan," chosen race of non - Jews, so that both Jews and non - Jews would not mingle, intermarry or even liase with one another. The warsaw ghetto was home to almost half a million Jews, who were imprisoned in an area that was 1.3 miles big! People died of starvation, malnutrition, and disease. Dozens of people were forced to live in single rooms together and the German army ran the ghetto like a prison. People were shot, abused and anyone who exercised sympathy towards the Jewish people were routinely killed along with their families. The Warsaw Ghetto was hell. Eventually in 1942, the Germans instituted what was called "the final solution." A diabolical plan to settle Jews in to concentration camps and eventually, kill them all. They vacated thousands of people from the Warsaw ghetto, and moved them to secret concentration camps. Seventy thousand people remained in the Ghetto, until certain people started hearing about the gassing of their families in concentration camps. Knowing their fate was sealed and not wanting to go down without a fight, a number of Jewish women and men formed an underground resistance group within the Ghetto. 

The resistance acquired arms, grenades and used the sewer system in the ghetto as bunkers. They distributed leaflets to their Jewish brethren and they armed themselves with the "chutzpah" to fight the Germans, even if it cost them their lives. As the sun rose on the 19th of April over the dirty, grey, dilapidated buildings in the Warsaw Ghetto, a german commander tried to lead his troops in to the ghetto to export the remaining Jews to the death camps. Shoots fired out, rifles bit the air, grenades blew dust and concrete everywhere and the resistance began firing at the Germans. Shocked and aghast, Germans soldiers were wounded and some were killed.

One of the founding members and high commander of the Jewish resistance group was a dark haired, Polish activist Zivia Lubetkin. She was the only female leader of the resistance group and she shot at the Germans with fearlessness. She protected the people under her and led them through the sewers and bunkers as they fought and held off the Germans for close to 3 weeks. The Germans were shocked at how long they Jews who were scantily armed and physically weak, could hold them off for so long. With woudned pride and bitter hatred, the commander ordered his men to smoke out the sewers and to blow up the buildings one by one. More then 7000 people were killed, over 57000 were taken to concentration camps, but Zivia and 9 others in the movement escaped through a tunnel and continued her resistance activities outside of Warsaw. One of the other commanders of the resistance movement was Yitzhak Zuckerman, a man who worked as an activist alongside Zivia since their youth. The two of them eventually married and became operatives, helping smuggle European Jews in to Israel (which was then called Mandate Palestine). Together, Zivia and Yitzhak and their fellow resistance members, established and built a Kibbutz in Northern Israel with a museum dedicated to the story of the Warsaw Ghetto resistance members. 

Zivia's life story really inspires me. To stand up against a highly established army of bloodthirsty Hitler soldiers armed with small pistols and vastly outnumbered, reminds me of the biblical stories in the book of Judges. When I first took my husband to the Holocaust Center in Cape Town, it was the pictures and the stories of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising that really had his interest. "Do you think we would have resisted?" he asked me. I would like to think so. Zivia fought for the rights and freedom of others, and she worked to this end alongside a man who shared the same values for justice and activism. That's rare and something worth noting. They also stayed married until they both passed away, but both left behind a legacy that has gone down in the history books. The warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the largest Jewish uprising within the Hitler war, and it inspired large number of youth outside of Warsaw, to do the same. Yitzhak himself said that "this was a war of less than a thousand people against a mighty army and no one doubted how it was likely to turn out." Zivia and her resistance group knew the outcome would probably not be in their favour, but they stood up and did something about their situation. They did not go quietly like lambs to the slaughter, they fought for a greater reality. 

As if the story couldn't get any better, their grand daughter Roni Zuckerman became the very first female fighter pilot in the Israeli Defense Force, 17 years ago. You go girl! Their fighting spirit lives on, passed from generation to generation. This is the legacy of those who stand up to free others, the kind of legacy and spirit we can pass on to those of our family members, our children, grandchildren, godchildren and spiritual children. May it be so! I'm grateful for the legacy of Zivia and for what she did, she continues to inspire, even today.
 

W.H.O? She is Reformer

W.H.O? Stands for Women History Offers and is an ongoing collection of short posts I'm writing up about remarkable women throughout history. This weeks write up is on the woman who fought the slave trade with a pen. Rightly she can be called a "warrior with a pen," and her life emulated what it means to have faith and fight for what is right. Meet Hannah More....

"Individuals who are not in Parliament seldom have an opportunity

of doing good to considerable numbers.

Even while I was writing the sentence I became conscious

of the falsehood of the position; witness Mrs. Hannah More

and all those who labour with a pen."

- William Wilberforce  

The life of Hannah More is one that has inspired me and taught me again how, our Father is so interested in every aspect and area of life. He is interested in justice for all and for freedom for all creation, including His beloved creation. Hannah More was born in to a family with five daughters. Her parents had modest backgrounds but her father Jacob More a school headmaster, used his teaching vocation as a means to educate his five girls beyond what little education women received in eighteenth century England. 

Women's education was beginning to expand but slowly and opinions differed as to how much education a woman could receive. Hannah and her sisters however, were in favour of womens education and opened a school where women were educated to become truer versions of themselves. Hannah's love and advocacy for education expanded across the course of her life. She advanced women's literacy and taught reading even in to her older years. Hannah showed a natural inclination towards writing and it was among London's finest, its poets, playwrights, politicians and who's - who, that it expanded. Yet it wasn't until 1780 that her heart was turned towards the Creator who would change her destiny.

The once lost John Newton, who penned the moving hymn Amazing Grace, published a collection of letters entitled Cardiphonia. Hannah read the book and a sudden awakening took place, not only in her own heart but among the "religious" folk of England. Hannah crept in to the pews to hear Newton preach and his background as a ships captain in  the slave trade and his conversion to a personal faith established on Christ, changed things for Hannah. Hannah was among the very first Christians who began to speak out against the slave trade. Her closest friends were slave abolitionists and included among them was William Wilberforce. Years before Wilberforce spoke out against the slave trade, Hannah was already hard at work against it. But when they met, their paths were forged in unity, they remained friends for 47 years, dying just mere days a part from one another. I started this post with sharing some of the words written by William Wilberforce, his words boast truth - it was among the warriors of the pen that the slave trade was fought against. Hannah wrote about Africa, about slavery and about freedom. She led a campaign boycotting the use of sugar from slave plantations. Her works changed minds among Englands high society and her poetry offered an emotional charge against the conditions of slaves. Their suffering was given a voice and it drew many to oppose slavery. She wrote to war against the inequalities of her time , and her work which spanned decades was a central part of the antislavery writings that emerged at the time. 

The mistreatment and neglect of animals was sadly characteristic of the times but Hannah joined with William Wilberforce and many others to change this. As Christians who believed in the Creator God who loved all creation, their hearts were burdened to see the inequalities of cruelty against the creation, undone. Wilbeforce was the founder of the S.P.C.A and his love for the animals is readily seen among his biographies and I am so grateful to him for this great gift. Hannah supported Wilberforce in his efforts to act against animal cruelty and she agreed that humanity needed to be empathetic towards everything and everyone and that included animals. Hannah was a firm believer in the role of education and its ability to change lives. She held to the belief that education could produce morals and could fan in to flame a deeper faith. 

Towards her latter years she retired to Barley Wood. After a period of depression, which often characterises people who are sensitive and deeply touched by the things around them,  she took up her pen again and was encouraged by her friends and sisters to keep scribbling. She wrote the most moving pieces of work, all devotionals, one entitled The spirit of Prayer, was translated in to French and published through 11 editions and the beauty of it was that Hannah wrote 11 books after the age of 60. Her home at Barley Wood became a place where people would visit her, learn from her and be mentored by her. It was in her nature to continue to help the poor, and she continued to be a philantropist until her death at the age of 88. She died leaving behind an extensive wealth of 30 000 pounds which largely went to charities of her choice. Hannah More was a woman who loved God, fought for what was right and did it by being herself, by believing in her God - given mission and by trusting her Saviour with her life. She had wonderful friends, a beloved sisterhood of five sisters and she fought with everything she had, for what was right. She has inspired me and I cannot read about her without shedding a tear. There are women who have gone before me whom I know I would have loved to meet and dear Hannah More is one of them. 

 

W.H.O? A Forgotten Holocaust Heroine

W.H.O? Stands for Women History Offers and is an ongoing collection of short posts I'm writing up about remarkable women throughout history. This weeks installment is powerful, a silent missionary who may well have been forgotten had it not been for an old suitcase that unearthed a heroine of goodness and Grace...

We know the stories of remarkable women who saved hundreds of Jewish people who otherwise would have perished in the gas chambers of the holocaust. Yet, the story of Elsie Tilney is a stunning story that is missing from our history books. A man by the name of Professor Sands, was doing what most of us do at some stage in our lives, he was unearthing the stories of his family tree. While ploughing through the belongings of his parents, he found an old uninteresting suitcase but when he opened it he found a mysterious handwritten letter which had the name Miss E.M. Tilney on it. He was curious about this mystery name and his search finally uncovered the identity of Miss Tilney.  

The curious inscription belonged to an English missionary from Surrey named Elsie Tilney. At first Elsie was called to mission work in North Africa but during her stay there, God placed a compassionate fire in her heart for the Jewish people. It was a dangerous time to side with the Jews. Hitler was advancing in Europe and slowly but surely Jewish citizens were being round up and put in the gas chamber or in the concentration camp. Having watched this from a distance, Elsie felt compelled to help, she travelled to Paris and began to aid Jewish refugees living in France. Little is known about Elsie's stay in Paris, but little by little stories are coming out about Elsie's bravery and daring. While in Paris she travelled in to Vienna (which was annexed by the Nazi's) to save a small baby who had been separated form her parents. Elsie returned with the little girl and reunited the child with her parents, but what she did could have cost her, her life.

Hitler eventually reached Paris and the city fell to Nazi occupation. Elsie remained behind with the Jewish people, not because she was a Jew but because Father wanted to use her to save lives. Elsie was imprisoned in a converted hotel, along with a number of Jews who held fake passports. These passports protected them until the final solution was declared. Elsie helped aid the people in procuring passports and she hid one man in her bathroom, a man named Sasche. This was a risk of great proportion, anyone who aided a Jew or dared to hide a Jewish soul would be killed together with the hidden individual. But Elsie risked her life to save others. Sasche remained hidden in her bathroom for over 5 months until Hitler and his regime fell. Paris was liberated and Elsie moved to America where she lived with her brother, she did not speak about what she had done for the Jewish people. She did not tell a soul, she took her Messiah's ordained works for her, to the grave with her. Her story forgotten until an old suitcase revealed her memory. 

Elsie's story reminds me of how many stories of Gods goodness has happened over the centuries passed. People marvel at these stories as though they are unnatural, yet our Father calls us to faith, He calls us to love and He calls us to bravery. He calls us not to ignore the need of another but to act where He positions us. He calls us to courage, to strength. How many are the names up in heaven of the people who dared to believe, who dared to give and who dared to live a Messiah - focused life with everything they had. May Yahweh give us all the strength to live a life of sacrifice and power! 

Previously Featured in this series - The Woman on the Mountain in Trousers

Sharing over at Glimpses 

W.H.O? The Lady on the Mountain in Trousers

W.H.O? is a new journey that expresses my love for writing about the women we know and don’t know. It stands for Women History Offers, and this is the first installment! Enjoy!

I could not stand history class. It was always a boring lecture, told by a passionless “sir” who read from a textbook. That was my experience at primary school, oddly enough all my history lessons were taught by men and we were always taught about wars and killings. Where was the good stuff I wondered, where were the lives that fell outside the lines of war and defeat, blood and hatred? No wonder everyone hated history class, because it was boring and the themes were all the same. I rolled my eyes and prayed for it to end. At the same time, I excelled in history, how did that happen? History intrigued me, fed something in me that would only fully form once I had found salvation.

History took on a different face however, when I went to university. Much of my English classes were historical in nature, most of the poets we read were dead and a lot of the books we read were written by people who were also dead. But their stories were not ones of war and hate, but of life and yearning. One of my English teachers was eccentric to the core but her stories were wild and exciting. Her words introduced me to a very different scene involving a woman who once climbed a mountain in the eighteenth century amidst wild and untamed terrain, dressed in her husband’s pants.

It was 1797, and characteristic of her adventurous nature, Lady Anne Barnard suggested a climb up Table Mountain. She donned her husband’s pants and became the first white woman to climb up the very difficult ascent to the top of this great wonder of the world. She climbed up the mountain with her husband, a friend, a few slaves and naval officers. It may seem insignificant to us that someone should climb Table Mountain, as most of us have already done it but it was a very different feat two hundred years ago. Lady Anne Barnard defied the odds when she put on a pair of pants, something women did not wear. She was close to fifty and was British, a woman exploring the South African terrain but perhaps not used to it yet. Still she had this way of description, writing about everything she saw and when she could she painted it. “..to behold a considerable Town more invisible than the smallest miniature which could be painted of one, to feel the pure air rising one up, it gave me a sort of unembodied feeling such as I conceive the Soul to have which mounts a beatified spirit leaving its atom of clay behind.”  (Lady Anne’s Cape Journals)

What astounds me about Lady Ann Barnard was that she was unwittingly egalitarian in her approach to life. She loved animals, admired people and did not see anyone as being different or strange. Her and her husband also had a way of life together, that showed an equality of love. Once they reached the top of Table Mountain, she expressed her thoughts on the happy journey but ended it all by saying that it was topped by this beautiful comfort and contentment of life that was only there because her and her husband were together. Lady Ann Barnard holds something of iconic status in the minds of Cape historians and some lay people, but what captured me about her, was her bravery, wit and her wonderful art works. Her paintings that forged a photograph of a country I call my own. Thank you Lady Ann for who you were and for leaving behind something of beautiful value and treasure that we today can look on and learn from…..

Next in this series is a Forgotten Holocaust Heroine, read her story over here: Forgotten Heroine