Sonia Shainwald Orbuch (born Sarah Shainwald, May 24, 1925 – September 30, 2018) was an American

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

educator. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

she was a Jewish resistance fighter in eastern Poland. Orbuch hid in the forests of Poland with her family during the Second World War. She joined a group of

Soviet partisans Soviet partisans were members of resistance movements that fought a guerrilla war against Axis forces during World War II in the Soviet Union, the previously Soviet-occupied territories of interwar Poland in 1941–45 and eastern Finland. The ...

, being renamed Sonia in case she was captured, and helped fight against the Germans. After the war, she returned home, where she met her future husband. After having a daughter in a refugee camp in Germany, the family eventually emigrated to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. She spent the rest of life in public engagement, speaking about her experiences and in 2009, published her autobiography, ''Here, There Are No Sarahs: A Woman's Courageous Fight Against the Nazis and Her Bittersweet Fulfillment of the American Dream''.

Early life

Sarah Shainwald was born on May 24, 1925 and grew up in Luboml, then part of

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

but now of

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

, a town about south of Warsaw, Poland, that had an overwhelmingly Jewish population.

Second World War

The Second World War broke out in 1939 when she was 14. The

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , long_name = Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , image = Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H27337, Moskau, Stalin und Ribbentrop im Kreml.jpg , image_width = 200 , caption = Stalin and Ribbentrop shaking ...

divided Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union and her hometown came under Soviet control. Two years later,

Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...

forced the Jews of Luboml into a

Jewish ghetto In the Jewish diaspora, a Jewish quarter (also known as jewry, ''juiverie'', ''Judengasse'', Jewynstreet, Jewtown, or proto-ghetto) is the area of a city traditionally inhabited by Jews. Jewish quarters, like the Jewish ghettos in Europe, were ...

. Eight thousand Jews were affected, resulting in a scramble to self-defend, escape or hide. Unable to join her brother's partisan group due to her gender, Sarah hid in the forest with her parents and uncle during the winter of 1942 to 1943, keeping on the move and remaining hungry, cold, and unclean with lice. In exchange for her uncle's knowledge of the area, Soviet partisans accepted them and renamed Sarah as Sonia to sound more Russian. They lived in a forest camp and joined the partisans in acts of sabotage and resistance; she was drafted into the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

in 1944. During one of the family's period of hiding, her mother died from

typhus Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure. ...

. She gave assistance to the wounded, despite having no previous medical training.

Post-war

By May 1945 and the end of the war, she was back in Luboml working in a post office. That same year, she married former Polish cavalry officer Isaak Orbuch,Sonia Orbuch obituary.
''The Times'', October 31, 2018. Retrieved November 6, 2018. whom she met in Chelm just after the war. Only 50 of the original 8,000 mostly Jewish residents of her town survived. After moving to a refugee camp in

Zeilsheim Zeilsheim is a quarter of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It is part of the ''Ortsbezirk (Frankfurt am Main), Ortsbezirk West'' and is subdivided into the ''Stadtbezirke'' Zeilsheim-Ost, Zeilsheim-Süd and Zeilsheim-Nord. As the westernmost district ...

near Frankfurt, Germany, where she gave birth to her daughter, the family moved to New York in February 1949, where Orbuch gave birth to her son Paul. She subsequently moved to Northern California with her family. She recounted her experiences in her public talksSonia Orbuch, Bay Area woman who fought Nazis as a girl, dies at 93.
Carl Nolte, ''San Francisco Chronicle'', October 9, 2018. Retrieved November 6, 2018. and in 2009, published her autobiography ''Here, There Are No Sarahs: A Woman's Courageous Fight Against the Nazis and Her Bittersweet Fulfillment of the American Dream'' which was co-authored with

Fred Rosenbaum Fred Rosenbaum is an American author, historian and adult educator, specializing in the history of the Jewish community of the San Francisco Bay Area. Rosenbaum has been called a "superb storyteller". He is a founder and the director of Lehrha ...

. Before she died, Orbuch reflected on the extent of Jewish resistance: "Was it possible for everybody to fight and get out to the forest and survive, no it wasn't. My brother did not survive, my uncle did not survive" but nevertheless she felt the "every person in the ghetto fought in their own way." Orbuch died on September 30, 2018. She received obituaries around the world, including from the United States, Asia, and Europe.

Publications

* ''Here, There Are No Sarahs: A Woman's Courageous Fight Against the Nazis and Her Bittersweet Fulfillment of the American Dream''. Gatekeeper Press, Columbus, 2009. (With Fred Rosenbaum)

References

External links

Video interview with Sonia Orbuch April 2017
{{DEFAULTSORT:Orbuch, Sonia 1925 births 2018 deaths Female resistance members of World War II Jewish Polish writers Jewish women writers Jewish partisans 20th-century Polish Jews Polish emigrants to the United States Polish autobiographers Polish women in World War II resistance People from Wołyń Voivodeship (1921–1939) Polish female soldiers Women autobiographers Jewish American writers People from Liuboml