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Solidarity Sukkot ---- Tales of Solidarity: Niuta Teitelbaum





"I am a Jew, my place is in the struggle against the Nazis for the honor of my people and for a free Poland!" ---Niuta TeitelBaum


Niuta Teitelbaum, aka Little Wanda With the Braids, was one of the earliest volunteers for the Polish underground soon after Warsaw fell to the Germans in October 1939. The petite twenty-two year old devout Jew wore her blond hair in pigtails, which made her look like a sixteen-year-old girl, effectively disguising her real role – assassin. She parlayed her innocent looks to gain entrance to Gestapo headquarters, and silently shot an SS officer as he sat at his desk. The episode is but one of her daring moves.




Niuta avoided capture for nearly three years, but in July 1943, two months after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ended, the Gestapo burst into her room before she could swallow a poison pill. After weeks of torture, she was executed at the age of twenty-five years old. To the Germans, she was Little Wanda with the Braids; to the Polish underground she became known as the Heroine of Warsaw. It’s said she was also part of a young communist organization as well; but it is her Jewish roots and loyalty to Poland that remain the two key points. ---excerpts from Katrina Shawver

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Submitted by Nom Lerman.

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