The history of rescue in Poland and genderperspective: new approaches and questions

Abstract

This essay does not claim to be a gender and quantitative analysis of rescue. Its modest aim is todiscuss complexities and diffi culties of studying the subject of rescue of Jews in wartime Polandfrom a gender perspective. The initial analysis put forward here is intended to investigate to whatextent gender mattered in the treatment of the non-Jewish Polish rescuers by members of theirlocal communities during and after the war. The essay demonstrates how the use of the categoryof gender in the study of rescue of Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland can facilitate an in-depth analysisof the nature of rescue of adult and young Jewish fugitives in everyday settings. Gender as a toolof analysis can also throw new light on dangers and betrayal of rescuers within the local socialenvironment. This essay also argues that gender should be explored in relation not only to objectivefactors such as the age, socio-economic background and religiosity of rescuers, but also in relationto more subjective factors such as internal dynamics in marriages and individual family practices,the individual system of beliefs, and parental and sexual desires of married, widowed and singlemale and female rescuers.