Mira Fuchrer was born to Jewish parents in Warsaw in 1920. She was active in Hashomer Hatzair youth organization in the interwar period, where she met the future commander of ŻOBMordechai Anielewicz. During the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland at the onset of World War II, Mira and Mordechai got together and fled to Wilno in northeastern part of prewar Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania) in September 1939.[3] They returned to Warsaw in January 1940, and began transforming Hashomer Hatzair into the resistance movement.[1] In November of the same year, they joined the fate of other Jewish citizens of Warsaw trapped in the newly formed ghetto.[4]
In the Warsaw Ghetto, Mira worked in a small tailor's shop along with her friends Towa Frenkel and Rachel Zilberberg. In 1942, she visited other ghettos in occupied Poland as a clandestine courier on behalf of ŻOB.[4][5] During the Ghetto Uprising, which began on 19 April 1943, she fought in the so-called central ghetto sector. On May 8, 1943, she was in a bunker at 18 Mila Street together with Mordechai Anielewicz, Rachel Zilberberg,[1] and a group of about 120 ZOB fighters when the bunker was discovered and surrounded by the Germans. Arie Wilner was the first to urge the fighters to commit suicide rather than surrender to the Germans. Most of the fighters shot themselves or took poison, including Mira and ZOB commander Mordechai Anielewicz.[3]
