The Last Woman of Warsaw by Judy Batalion
Dutton, April 2026
“Home is an extension of self,” Fanny says, “filled with traces of you. You make it but it also makes you. It’s an endless reflection.”
“Home,” Zosia replies, looking her in the eyes, “is where you stop running away.”
This early exchange in Judy Batalion’s debut novel The Last Woman of Warsaw encapsulates not only the diverging worldviews of its protagonists, but different facets of prewar Jewish life in Warsaw, then a central hub for evolving ideas about Judaism, Jewish life, and the role of Jews in society. The novel is the awaited follow-up to the Montreal-born-and-raised author’s book The Light of Days, about Jewish women resistance fighters, which won a National Jewish Book Award and a Canadian Jewish Literary Award.
Set in 1938 Warsaw, the book follows two young Jewish women, Fanny Zelshinsky and Zosia Dror. Though they have starkly different backgrounds, they are brought together by their shared mentor, Professor Wanda Petrovsky: a mysterious, unreachable, and almost messianic figure who represents a ticket to freedom for both women.
Fanny is a product of Warsaw’s Jewish elite, largely raised by a single mother. She struggles to forge her independence as an artist and photographer while meeting the expectations for a woman of her social station. At the novel’s outset she is recently engaged; this development she meets with ambivalence tinged with dread, insofar as her life as a married woman would all but halt any professional ambitions. Fanny is pursuing a university degree in French she feels little passion for, and wishes instead to pursue art. Her hoped-for ticket to independence is a place in a highly coveted gallery showcase, requiring the approval of Professor Petrovsky.
Meanwhile, Zosia is newly established in Warsaw. She is among the national leaders of Dror, the Labour Zionist group founded in Poland in 1915 (which later merged with Habonim to form Habonim Dror). Raised in an observant Jewish household in a small shtetl, a chance encounter with a local chapter of the movement sets Zosia on a different path, offering hope and an escape from a traumatic past. Convinced that only life in a Jewish homeland offers security and a future, she abandons her old life so completely that she adopts “Dror” as her surname. Soon after arriving in Warsaw, a fellow comrade sends her to meet Professor Petrovsky, who is highly ranked within Dror and reputedly able to secure coveted visas to Palestine.
Soon, the two protagonists meet on their respective journeys to the professor’s office, only to find she has mysteriously disappeared. Though an unlikely and often contentious pair, they are united in their search for the professor. Over the course of the novel, each becomes embroiled in the other’s corner of Jewish life, as the situation for all Jews in Poland grows increasingly dire.
Fanny is thoroughly secular – her family does not even attend services on Yom Kippur – and deeply integrated in the highest cultural echelons of Polish society. She draws a sharp distinction between enlightened urbanites, whom she believes incapable of antisemitism, and the rural population. Yet despite the ease with which Fanny navigates Warsaw society, she is caged in her own way. Through their unexpected relationship, Zosia and Fanny are transformed: Zosia draws Fanny toward Jewish political activism, while Fanny introduces Zosia to the merits of individualism and personal connection beyond the socialist ethos encouraged by Dror.
One of the most striking aspects of Batalion’s novel is its vivid exploration of prewar Warsaw as a centre of culture rivalling the great cities of Western Europe, with a vibrant female intelligentsia. Both Fanny and Zosia are confidently carving paths for themselves, which, as the book shows, may not have been too unconventional for a woman of the time. Indeed, women were entering universities in growing numbers, ascending the ranks in many professional fields, and had gained the vote earlier than in many other Western countries (including the United States).
Batalion also captures the rich tapestry of Jewish cultural life in Warsaw, from the “highest” to the “lowest” cultural production milieus. This is a community with grand synagogues staffed by world-renowned musical directors, theatre scenes in both Polish and Yiddish, art, high-class dining, and fashionable if sometimes seedy nightlife. Cameos abound from notable figures of Warsaw’s Jewish community, from the esteemed historian and politician Emanuel Ringelbaum to the comedy duo Dzigan and Schumacher.
If there is a shortcoming, it lies not in the novel itself but in its conventional name and cover design. Too often, insightful and thought-provoking novels are packaged in the familiar branding of Holocaust genre fiction: their cover art almost always features a solitary woman, seen from behind, gazing at a war-torn European city (ideally Paris), typically in a red coat echoing the iconic image from Schindler’s List. The Last Woman of Warsaw falls into this pattern (mercifully without the red coat), which undersells the originality and depth of the work.
Through its meticulous attention to detail to prewar life, Batalion underscores just how shocking the downturn was for the situation of Jews in Poland. For how could a society so rich and thriving, one in which so many freedoms were hard-won by a well-established and well-organized Jewish community, possibly sour so fast? But more than anything, The Last Woman of Warsaw is both an elegy for and a celebration of the largely forgotten world of Jewish feminism in Poland, once rich with opportunity and a vibrant Jewish female culture.