Tosia Altman

Who was Tosia Altman?

Tova Altman organized underground structures of Hashomer Hatzair and worked with Mordechai Anielewicz as a member of the ŻOB during the Warsaw ghetto uprising.

She initially worked as a courier, making contact with Jewish resistance groups outside of the ghetto and providing them with updates on resistance clashes, as well as providing educational material that was banned by the occupying German forces. Later, she was critical in helping to smuggle weapons and explosives into the Warsaw ghetto.

She escaped a capture attempt on 18 January 1943 and moved to the ZOB bunker at 18 Miła Street, she was one of the few to survive the battle on 8 May that saw the bunker abandoned and Mordechai Anielewicz killed. Despite suffering wounds to the leg and head, Altman was able to join a group of approximately seventy-five resistance fighters who left the ghetto on 10 May in a daring sewer escape. She was captured again by the Nazis on 24 May when the celluloid factory she was sheltering in accidentally caught fire and she suffered severe burns. She was taken into custody by the Gestapo and died shortly afterward, receiving no medical treatment.