I'm an author, broadcaster and public historian specialising in women’s experiences during the Second World War. While courage and sacrifice are often recognised, the effectiveness of the women who served is less frequently acknowledged. Popular culture tends to focus on glamour, yet these women were motivated by the same patriotism and sense of duty as men, while facing sexism, unequal pay, and fewer protections. Through my books and public history work, I aim to restore recognition of their achievements. This has included securing portraits in the National Portrait Gallery, public sculptures, and an English Heritage Blue Plaque. I regularly contribute to BBC television and radio, and my books have won or been shortlisted for major literary, historical, and biography prizes.
This book shows that although the public face of the trials was resolutely male, as were the indictments—no mention of rape for example—in fact, many women played significant roles preparing legal cases, testifying, documenting, and reporting the events.
The remarkable stories of sixteen women are told here, in well-marshalled chapters, both during and after the trials. Some were found, literally, in footnotes; others became famous in their own right; some faded into obscurity, their careers cut short by workplace sexism.
This is a fresh and compelling narrative, restoring some of the forgotten diversity to the trials and challenging our modern image of the men at work there.
'Natalie Livingstone's deeply researched, unfailingly fascinating book gives the many extraordinary women at or near the centre of the Nuremberg trials their proper, important, and often ignored place in history' Salman Rushdie
'Brilliant . . . History erased these women. Natalie is righting that wrong. So fascinating, you've got to get this book in your life' Chris Evans
'A book that is as interesting as it is important. Beautifully written and immaculately researched, Livingstone transforms what we think and know about a terrible moment in history by focusing on a group of remarkable women, their…
Anita Lasker survived the Holocaust because, as a Berlin teenager, she had enjoyed cello lessons. Lily Mathé’s violin performances had once impressed the man who became the Auschwitz commandant. Alma Rosé, the talented niece of Gustav Mahler, became the conductor who kept these young women and forty others alive through ferocious discipline and determination.
The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz recounts not only the lives of the women who were once forced to play melodies in the darkest moments of the twentieth century, but also the ethical questions that haunted the survivors.
'Superb and timely' KATE MOSSE 'Impressive, important, deeply moving' SARAH WATERS 'Brilliant' ANTHONY HOROWITZ
What role could music play in a death camp? What was the effect on those women who owed their survival to their participation in a Nazi propaganda project? And how did it feel to be forced to provide solace to the perpetrators of a genocide that claimed the lives of their family and friends?
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 assembled to play…
A gripping, unflinching biography of SS Overseer Maria Mandl, one of the most notorious and contradictory figures at the heart of the Nazi regime, and her transformation from harmless small-town girl to hardened killer. By the time of her execution at 36, Maria Mandl had achieved the highest rank possible…
This book restored the stories of the Soviet women who served in the Second World War (Great Patriotic War in Russian history), which had been ignored in the official histories.
Hundreds of veteran and witness testimonies (the book was first published in the 1980s) build a powerful, if sometimes painful, picture of pilots, snipers, and tank drivers as well as medics on the frontline, and their postwar lives.
This is essentially an oral history giving voice to hundreds of women first drafted, then ignored. Alexievich won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2015.
'It would be hard to find a book that feels more important or original' - Viv Groskop, Observer
Extraordinary stories from Soviet women who fought in the Second World War - from the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
"Why, having stood up for and held their own place in a once absolutely male world, have women not stood up for their history? Their words and feelings? A whole world is hidden from us. Their war remains unknown... I want to write the history of that war. A women's history."
The book refutes one of the abiding misconceptions about the Second World War—that the Jews of Europe went passively to their deaths.
In fact, there was fierce and sustained armed resistance operating from many of the ghettos, culminating in uprisings, as well as revolts in concentration and forced labour camps, and a significant, if sometimes covert, Jewish presence in partisan armies. Furthermore, much of this resistance was enabled, organised, and led by women.
This is well-researched, multifaceted history, raising fascinating questions about the nature of agency, resistance, and testimony, as well as being an intense and atmospheric tribute to these women.
'Original and compelling, an untold story of rare and captivating power' Philippe Sands
'A fascinating history about a little-known group who took on the Nazis . . . The individual tales of these courageous young women are remarkable' Independent
'Rescues a long-neglected aspect of history from oblivion, and puts paid to the idea of Jewish, and especially female, passivity during the Holocaust. It is uncompromising, written with passion - and it preserves truly significant knowledge. ... Judy Batalion has uncovered a trove of unknown or forgotten information about the Holocaust of genuine import and impact.'…
A gripping, unflinching biography of SS Overseer Maria Mandl, one of the most notorious and contradictory figures at the heart of the Nazi regime, and her transformation from harmless small-town girl to hardened killer. By the time of her execution at 36, Maria Mandl had achieved the highest rank possible…
This book shows how six women out-scooped the men as correspondents during the Second World War because having to navigate sexist newspaper bias and military restrictions often gave the women a professional edge.
Martha Gellhorn, Lee Miller, Clare Hollingworth, Helen Kirkpatrick, Ruth Cowan, and Virginia Cowles' lives all intersected as the war progressed, and, between them, they covered many of the key battles and engagements, often bringing complete scoops and always fresh perspectives.
This is the powerful and compelling book that these intrepid journalists deserve.
'They were not just reporters; they were also pioneers, and Judith Mackrell has done them proud.' Spectator
'This is a book that manages to be thoughtful and edge-of-your-seat thrilling.' Mail on Sunday
'Like the copy filed by her subjects, it is an essential read.' BBC History Magazine
On the front lines of the Second World War, a contingent of female journalists were bravely waging their own battle. Barred from combat zones and faced with entrenched prejudice and bureaucratic restrictions, these women were forced to fight for the right to work on equal terms as men.
Agent Zo, aka Elżbieta Zawacka, was the only woman to parachute from Britain to German-occupied Poland during WW2. Heights terrified her. So did the Gestapo; having already served over three years in the clandestine Polish resistance, she knew what was at stake. Returning as the only female member of the Polish elite Special Forces, the ‘Silent Unseen', Zo played a key role in the largest organised act of defiance against Nazi Germany: the Warsaw Uprising.
Zo continued to resist after the war, but the Soviet-imposed Communist regime not only imprisoned her but also ensured that her remarkable story was hidden. Now, through new archival research and exclusive interviews with people who knew and fought alongside her, Clare Mulley brings this forgotten heroine back to life.
