You can read more about Joan Bielski here and here and here and here.
You can read about her Nazi-hunting husband, here.
One may wonder what feminist message Joan managed to convey, at a boys-only school, a decade before Women's Lib. (as it was known) got rolling - if any. Through her quiet dignity and intelligent teaching, I believe Joan Bielski set a perfect example to we young men of how admirable, effective and achieving some women can be, without employing any of the shrill, pugnacious and self-righteous rhetoric we later came to associate with the women's movement. Joan Bielski calmly won our respect.
As I wrote on our STHS reunion website:
'Librarian Joan Bielski took some of us First Formers for a walking tour of Sydney's Rocks area. Explained Australia's colonial history and architecture to us, irresistibly. To this day, I can spot a Georgian window at ten paces. Rose to be Chief of the Dept. of Education's Anti-Sexism Squad, then a pillar of the Women's Electoral Lobby. Probably one of the few undoubted intellectuals ever to have taught or influenced any of us.'Amen, or perhaps, awomen.
