The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women

Features thousands of biographic and thematic essays on Jewish women around the world. Learn more

Gertrude Shapiro

by JWA Staff
Our work to expand the Encyclopedia is ongoing. We are providing this brief biography for Gertrude Shapiro until we are able to commission a full entry.

Gertrude Shapiro, a WWII army nurse, leans out the window of a small aircraft circa 1940s.

A nurse who put her patients before herself, Gertrude Shapiro travelled to Hiroshima to treat the injured after the city suffered an atomic blast. Shapiro arrived in the city in September of 1945, a little more than a month after the bombing. It is very likely that the radiation she was exposed to through her work caused the illnesses she suffered throughout her life, as well as her early death from cancer.

How to cite this page

Jewish Women's Archive. "Gertrude Shapiro." (Viewed on September 21, 2023) <https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/shapiro-gertrude>.

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