Conference Program

Women of Kraków and the Generalgouvernement through the Kaleidoscope of the Holocaust and WWII 1939-1945

Day 1: Wednesday, 28/10/2026 at Schindler's Factory (Lipowa 4 St.)

14:00 – 15:00 Reception and Registration

15:00 – 16:00 Conference opening

16:00 – 16:30 Coffee Break

16:30 – 18:00 A tour of the Schindler Museum

18:30 Dinner at Ptaszyl on 10 Szeroka St., Kraków.

Day 2: Thursday, 29/10/2026 at Krzysztofory Palace (Copper Hall - Sala Miedziana - Rynek Glowny 35 - Main Square)

09:00 – 10:30 Panel 1 - Her story

Chair: Batya Brutin

Yoel Yaari, Lonka Kozybrodska: A Forgotten Heroine of Jewish Resistance

Racheli Ikar, "We Do Not Fear Death": Dr. Rozalia Blau – a Woman Physician in the Kraków Ghetto Hospital

Alessandro Matta, Matilde Eckert, the unknown story of a Jewish woman from Krakow to Cagliari

10:30 – 11:00 Coffee Break

11:00 – 12:30 Panel 2 - Women's Survival Strategies

Chair: Anna Zapalec

Przemysław Zarubin, Jewish Women in Kraków, 1939–1942, through the Lens of Notarial Records: A Preliminary Research Survey

Alicja Jarkowska, Across the Wall: Jewish Women in the Criminal Underworld in and Beyond the Kraków Ghetto

Katarzyna Zechenter, Teenage Daughters and Their Mothers: Survival Strategies in the Autobiographical Writings of Jewish Women from Kraków

12:30 – 14:00 Lunch Break (At participants' own expense)

14:00 – 15:30 Panel 3 - Physical and Meta-Physical Resistance

Chair: Lily Halpert Zamir

Yossi Suede, Portrait of a Woman Fighter: A Collective Biography of the Women of the Jewish Military Union (ŻZW) in Warsaw

Larissa-Marie Lömpel, Surviving Together: Miriam Wagman Liptcher and Female Networks in Auschwitz Birkenau

Oxana Antsiferova, Concentration Camp through Survivor Testimonies
Negotiating Everyday Life: Jewish Women’s Experiences in the Płaszów Concentration Camp through Survivor Testimonies

15:30 – 16:00 Coffee Break

16:00 – 17:00 Panel 4 - The Fates of Jewish Women

Chair: Piotr Figiela

Hanna Rosenbaum-Erlichman, From Resistance to Renewal: A Jewish Woman's Journey Through War, Survival and Rebirth

Kara Torres-Kilgannon, Helen and Stella: Surviving the Violence of the Holocaust in Kraków

Day 3: Friday, 30/10/2026 at Krzysztofory Palace (Copper Hall - Sala Miedziana - Rynek Glowny 35 - Main Square)

09:00 – 11:00 A tour to the Płaszów Museum

12:30 – 14:00 Panel 1 - Jewish Women's Stories

Chair: Maciej J. Tomal

Dagmara Swałtek-Niewińska, Expelled from Kraków: Wartime Niepołomice through the Eyes of Two Young Jewish Women

Anna Smywińska-Pohl, Break, Survival, and Emigration: The Lives of Kraków Women Philosophers and Psychoanalysts in the 20th Century

Aleksandra Gaj, Broken Pens, Altered Identities, and Healed Trauma: The Impact of WWII on the Lives of Felicja Stendig, Rela Schmeidler, and Maria Orwid

14:00 – 15:30 Lunch Break (At participants' own expense)

15:30 – 17:00 Panel 2 - Non-Jewish Women's Stories

Chair: Przemysław Zarubin

Katarzyna Kocik, “I survived, I am alive” – testimonies of non-Jewish women working in the Kraków ghetto.

Karolina Ożóg, Herstories hidden in the archives of the “NKVD Investigative Department in the Lviv Oblast” at the State Archives of the Lviv Oblast (DALO)

Bożena Iwanowska, Blue Cards, Kinderheim Lists, and Potato Peelings: Women’s Care and Survival in Kraków–Płaszów and the Generalgouvernement

17:30 – 18:00 Conference Summation