Helen and Sol Krawitz Holocaust Memorial Education Center

In many cases, the hardships that the Jews encountered under Nazi rule altered the traditional division of roles between men and women. Often Jewish men, especially in Poland, were targeted first – detained in concentration camps, assigned to forced labor, or even murdered. Accordingly, the men tended to emigrate or flee from areas under Nazi rule before the rest of the family, if the opportunity arose. Subsequently, women and children often remained their families’ primary source of support. Jewish women found it easier, in some cases, to leave Jewish communities for it was harder for them to be identified as Jews. Jewish men were circumcised, thereby making them a target for Jewish identification. Within the reality of the concentration camps, the Nazis segregated prisoners according to gender and treated them separately. In all cases in the extermination camps, though they might have been healthy and strong, women were sent to their death if they had small children with them.