fell mostly onto Mrs B.’s shoulders. [46] She personally escorted the children in small groups to the new, temporary locale. She assisted with packing and supervised the transport. And so on. In her work she often faced financial problems, ones she overcame only through the sacrifice of her own interests.
The situation in the ghetto occasioned many reorganisational changes in Centos. As the children from Mrs B.’s orphanage were placed in several other orphanages, she lost her job. She once again started knocking at various directors’ doors. She stood in queues for hours waiting for “just five minutes” of their time. Difficult days of want began. Her husband was working only off and on in the Community and there were not many private injections or massages for her to administer.
Finally, after long and strenuous endeavours, Mrs B. was hired by the TOZ as a hygienist for a refugee centre.
Every day before midday Mrs B. visits her centre and examines its sanitary condition, as well as its inhabitants’ hygiene and health. From time to time she organizes meetings for women, at which she explains the principles of personal hygiene. Her remuneration for this work is not enough for her to live on. Consequently, Mrs B. patches up her budget with her private nursing practice. She supported herself and her husband until October 1941, when her husband died of pneumonia.
Despite her constant financial struggle, Mrs B. does not limit herself to [47] earning money. She devotes a lot of time (almost all her evenings) to her duties in the Ladies’ Committee in her tenement. She visits the centre in her courtyard. During the raging typhus epidemic, she gave injections and applied cold packs and tried to obtain more food. She is also the one who is leading the feeding campaign for the poor children in her tenement. In her social work Mrs B. gives vent to her energy, while her successes make her content and fortify her in her struggle to survive.
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The present war has highlighted in particular two psychological types of women. There are women who do not give up despite several defeats in their struggle to survive. They press forward, carried by the force of inertia
