Women Against Tyranny cover

The Practice of
Dr. Adelaide Hautval

Try to imagine her

a Gentile among Jews
a doctor among the sick
a prisoner rounded up

in France trying to get home
for her mother's funeral,
an accidental arrest

plunging her into the cold
eye of evil, protesting
every step of the way

Bourges prison
arguing with the guards,
cursing each cruelty,

the cattle car
stitching "Friend of the Jews"
on her coat,

the Birkenau barracks
nursing the sick, hiding
those dying from typhus

Block 10
refusing to practice
Nazi 'gynecology'—refusing
to inject, irradiate,
sterilize, maim, disfigure—

Try to imagine her
surviving Auschwitz and
   Ravensbruck
to testify
that it was possible
to behave humanely

Try to imagine her—
Adelaide Hautval—a doctor
with a practice
in refusal.

Praise for Women Against Tyranny

Davi Walders has written an important book that brings to light many of the roles women played in resistance to the Holocaust. This is history that is exciting and inspiring.

—Marge Piercy, Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Author of The Moon Is Always Female, The Art of Blessing the Day, Colors Passing Through Us, and other collections of poetry

With the publication of Women Against Tyranny, Davi Walders gives recognition to the women who fought for human rights, sacrificed their lives in many cases and in the process saved many innocent lives.

—Johanna Neuman, Silver Spring, Maryland
(rescued in Albania)

This is a unique and extraordinary collection of poems and narratives which opens new avenues of representation for teaching Holocaust literature. Davi Walders knows so many Holocaust heroes (e.g. Dr. Rita Levi-Monatalcini, Sophie Scholl, Cory Ten Boom, Zivia Lubetkin) so well that she writes persona poems, poems in the voices of the women themselves. I cannot imagine teaching Holocaust literature without "The Silence at Treblinka" or "Lidice Survivor" or any of the invaluable texts she now offers teachers and reader who are willing to open themselves to new and even startling voices.

—Marc Lee Raphael
Nathan and Sophia Gumenick Professor of Judaic Studies, The College of William and Mary


In addition to ordering WOMEN AGAINST TYRANNY from Clemson University Press or Davi Walders, the book is available at libraries; Politics and Prose Bookstore, Washington, DC; and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC.