Showing results for "the women" in Modern

At the turn of the 20th century, in the village of Nagyrév, Hungary, midwife Zsuzsanna Fazekas was more than a caretaker—she was a confidante. She helped poor women give birth; she assisted them with abortions; and she listened. Their stories were the same: husbands who drank, who beat them, who made their lives unbearable. In response, Auntie Zsuzsi asked one question: "Why bother with them?" Her solution was arsenic.

In 1943, German SS officers in charge of Auschwitz-Birkenau ordered that an orchestra should be formed among the female prisoners. Almost fifty women and girls from eleven nations were drafted into a hurriedly assembled band that would play marching music to other inmates, forced labourers who left each morning and returned, exhausted and often broken, at the end of the day.

A classic of Holocaust literature, Gerda Weissmann Klein's celebrated memoir tells the moving story of a young woman's 3 frightful years as a slave laborer of the Nazis and her miraculous liberation. All But My Life stands as the ultimate lesson in humanity, hope, and friendship.

What did it feel like to be a woman living in Paris during the years 1939 to 1949? These were years of fear, power, aggression, courage, deprivation and secrets until, finally, there was renewal and retribution. Even at the darkest moments, dogs and cats might be abandoned howling on the street, the swastika flew from the Eiffel Tower and danger lurked on every corner, but glamour was ever present.

On March 25, 1942, nearly a thousand young, unmarried Jewish women boarded a train in Poprad, Slovakia. Filled with a sense of adventure and national pride, they left their parents' homes wearing their best clothes and confidently waving good-bye. Believing they were going to work in a factory for a few months, they were eager to report for government service. Instead, the young women - many of them teenagers - were sent to Auschwitz.

Sex workers in 19th-century Melbourne were judged morally corrupt by the respectable world around them. But theirs was a thriving trade, with links to the police and political leaders of the day, and the leading brothels were usually managed by women. While today a popular bar and a city lane are famously named after Madame Brussels, the identities of the other ‘flash madams’, the ‘dressed girls’ who worked for them and the hundreds of women who solicited on the streets of the Little Lon district of Melbourne are not remembered.

Joséphine Bonaparte, future Empress of France; Térézia Tallien, the most beautiful woman in Europe; and Juliette Récamier, muse of intellectuals, had nothing left to lose. After surviving incarceration and forced incestuous marriage during the worst violence of the French Revolution of 1789, they dared sartorial revolt.

Migrants and millionairesses, refugees and aristocrats all looking for a way to improve their lives. After WW1 a world of opportunity was opening up for women.... Before convenient air travel, transatlantic travel was the province of the great ocean liners and never more so than in the glory days of the interwar years. It was an extraordinary undertaking made by many women. Some traveled for leisure, some for work; others to find a new life, marriage, to reinvent themselves or find new opportunities. Their stories have remained largely untold - until now.

Hollywood was born just over a century ago, at a time of huge forward motion for women's rights. With no rules in place to stop them, there were women who forged ahead in many areas of filmmaking. Yet, despite the work of early pioneers like Dorothy Arzner, Mabel Normand, Mary Pickford and Alice Guy-Blaché, it soon came to embody the same old sexist standards. Women found themselves fighting a system that fed on their talent, creativity and beauty but refused to pay them the same respect as their male contemporaries - until now....

Women made their way to India for exactly the same reasons men did - to carve out a better life for themselves. In the early days, India was a place where the slates of 'blotted pedigrees' were wiped clean; bankrupts given a chance to make good; a taste for adventure satisfied - for women. They went and worked as milliners, bakers, dress makers, actresses, portrait painters, maids, shopkeepers, governesses, teachers, boardinghouse proprietors, midwives, nurses, missionaries, doctors, geologists, plant collectors, writers, travellers and - most surprising of all - traders.

By the time of her execution at thirty-six, Maria Mandl had achieved the highest rank possible for a woman in the Third Reich. As Head Overseer of the women's camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, she was personally responsible for the murders of thousands, and for the torture and suffering of countless more. Susan J. Eischeid explores how Mandl, regarded locally as “a nice girl from a good family,” came to embody the very worst of humanity. Her life mirrors the period in which she lived: turbulent, violent, and suffused with paradoxes.

In the wake of the Nazi invasion of Europe, the tentative sparks of resistance in occupied countries were fanned by Britain's Special Operations Executive. Across the continent, SOE recruited women to "set Europe ablaze." Working as secret agents and saboteurs, these individuals bolstered resistance from within and provided much needed support and weapons. F Section's actions in France are renowned, and today some operatives have become household names.

This is an unconventional biography of an unconventional woman. Eglantyne Jebb moved from drawing rooms to war zones, often defying expectation and at times breaking the law. Although not fond of individual children, she founded Save the Children and originated the revolutionary concept of children's human rights. Clare Mulley brings to life the brilliant, charismatic, passionate, and compassionate woman, whose work has saved millions of lives and permanently changed the way the world treats children. Save the Children ambassador Joely Richardson narrates this extraordinary story.

From the summer of 1938, British women from all walks of life joined the Women's Voluntary Services (WVS). This disparate band of women came together for the common good - to help serve and protect their communities. By 1941 a million women had enrolled. These brave and dutiful women played a vital role in Britain's victory. The positive impact of the WVS on wartime society was universally acknowledged. They were instrumental in implementing the large-scale evacuation of children from bomb-targeted cities, in the care of the wounded, and in keeping those in war service fed.

One cool day in 1929, Lee Miller arrives in bohemian Paris to pursue her dream of being an artist, having left behind a successful modelling career at Vogue. Gorgeous and talented, she catches the eye of renowned surrealist artist Man Ray and convinces him to hire her as his assistant. Man is an egotistical, charismatic force, and soon their personal and professional lives become intimately entwined.

In the winter of 1969, from big cities to small towns, young women across the country sent in applications to Yale University for the first time. The Ivy League institution dedicated to graduating "1,000 male leaders" each year had finally decided to open its doors to the nation's top female students. The landmark decision was a huge step forward for women's equality in education. Or was it?

Die Historikerin und Autorin Miriam Gebhardt beschreibt das Lebensgefühl deutscher Frauen nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg eindringlich, persönlich und mit viel Empathie. Dazu hat sie in bis dahin unerreichter Dichte die Selbstzeugnisse von Frauen ausgewertet und stellt konsequent deren Erleben in den Mittelpunkt.

1929—die wilden Zwanziger entfalten noch einmal ihre volle Blüte, doch schon werfen Blutmai, die instabile politische Lage der Weimarer Republik und die wachsenden Wahlerfolge der NSDAP düstere Schatten auf Frieden, Freiheit und Fortschritt. Mit Beginn der Weltwirtschaftskrise zeichnet sich ab, dass dieses Jahr ein letzter Tanz auf dem Vulkan ist.

1919 - Schicksalsjahr und Meilenstein für die Frauenbewegung! Eine faszinierende Zeitreise ins Jahr 1919 – lebendig erzählt in 12 Kapiteln und 12 Monaten. 1919 dürfen Frauen in Deutschland erstmals wählen und machen sich auf allen Gebieten daran, ihr Leben selbst zu gestalten: Käthe Kollwitz wird als erste Frau in die Akademie der Künste berufen, Marie Juchacz hält als Erste eine Rede im Parlament und Gunta Stölzl studiert am 1919 gegründeten Bauhaus.

The Fleet Street Girls is the inspiring story of the female journalists who broke down barriers in the 1970s as women arrived on Fleet Street for the first time. Julie Welch was the first ever female football reporter. To achieve this role at the Observer, she had to battle the National Union of Journalists nearly calling a strike when she dared to write an article as a mere secretary; an entire room of men falling silent to listen to her give her first football report over the phone, before pronouncing it passable; and many other battles in-between.