Remember the Women Institute honors Holocaust hero Haviva Reick
Photo, right: Participants at the event to honor Haviva Reick are, left to right, Ambassador Ido Aharoni, Consul General of Israel in new York; Dr. Rochelle G. Saidel, director of Remember the Women Institute; Judith C. Siegel, Director of Academic and Public Programs, Center for Jewish History; Hon. Jana Trnovcova, Consul General of the Slovak Republic in New York; Dr. Thomas Ort, Assistant Professor of History, Queens College; Mirka Molnar Lachka, producer of Return to a Burning House. The two Consuls General spoke about Haviva Reick before the screening of the film. Afterward, the other participants were part of a panel discussion. Photos by Karen Shulman
Remember the Women Institute has been working since 2014 to give Israeli-Slovakian Holocaust hero Haviva Reick her rightful place in history.
Haviva Reick (1914-1944) was one of the 30 or so parachutists recruited from British Mandate pre-Israel to return to Europe during World War II. She was an activist during the Slovak National Uprising, a member of British Intelligence and the Palmach, and a passionate Zionist leader. Haviva had left her beloved native Slovakia to found a Hashomer Hatzair kibbutz in British Mandate pre-Israel Palestine. After joining the Palmach strike force of pre-Israel’s army, she was recruited by the British military in 1944 and sent back to Slovakia to rescue Allied airmen and help the remnant of the Jewish community. She was ultimately captured and murdered by Nazi allies, after trying to lead members of the Jewish community to safety. As she was wearing British dog tags, she was later exhumed from a mass grave outside of Banská Bystrica, identified, and buried in an Allied cemetery in Prague. From there her body was brought back to Israel in 1952, and she was buried among military heroes on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. There were three women among the parachutists: Haviva Reick, Hannah Szenes (whose story is better known), and Sarah Braverman, who was unable to get to her destination in Europe but became a founder of the women’s corps of the Israel defense forces.
Remember the Women Institute was a co-producer of a Slovakian documentary film about Haviva Reick, Return to a Burning House, and brought it to New York on June 3, 2015, for its United States premiere. The event, held at the Center for Jewish history, was co-sponsored by the Center for Jewish History, the Leo Baeck Institute, Remember the Women Institute, and the Consulate General of Slovakia in New York. The filmmaker is Anna Grusková and the producer is Mirka Molnar Lachka,
Correcting Information for Haviva Reick’s Memorial on Mount Herzl
In preparation for our 2015 film premiere and to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day, on January 27, 2015, Rochelle Saidel visited Haviva Reick’s grave on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. There are seven stones there, some with actual graves, such as Haviva’s, and some as markers for murdered parachutists whose bodies were not returned to Israel. Something seemed off about both the Hebrew birth and death dates on Haviva’s stone. After careful investigation with the help of experts Tehila and Ze’ev Ofer, Dr. Saidel realized that both dates were wrong. With the help of then Consul General in New York Ido Aharoni and the Israel Ministry of Defense, as well as the approval of Haviva’s niece and nephew, she was able to have the dates corrected on the stone. This was reported by Jessica Steinberg in The Times of Israel.
Conference in Bratislava, 2019
On January 21, Haviva Reick was honored at a special event at the XX Conference: If This is a Woman in Bratislava, Slovakia. The film Return to a Burning House was shown, Dr. Rochelle G. Saidel provided background, and filmmaker Anna Grusková also participated.
Articles about Haviva Reick
See Rochelle G. Saidel’s 2014 article about Haviva Reick, marking 100 years since her birth, in The Times of Israel..
For more information, and our involvement in making people aware of Haviva, see “Remembering the heroism of Haviva Reick,” another article in in The Times of Israel by Cathryn Prince.
A Recommended Book about Haviva Reick
In connection with events to honor Haviva Reick, we held discussions with people in Israel and in Slovakia who are working to preserve her memory. In Israel we met with Tehila and Zeev Ofer, who wrote a biography in Hebrew about Reick, entitled Haviva. This important book by two former Palmach members, the result of research, field trips, and interviews, is now available in English for the first time. Entitled Haviva Reick: A Kibbutz Pioneer’s Mission and Fall behind Nazi Lines, the book not only details Reick’s bravery on her mission but also tells the complete story of her life. Reick, like the Ofers, was a member of the Palmach before she left on her mission.
“100 Candles for Haviva” Ceremony in the Garden
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Haviva Reick in 2014, the Slovak National Uprising Museum (Museum SNU) in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia, created a garden in her memory and held a special ceremony there. A ceremony entitled “100 Candles for Haviva” took place on Sunday, July 20, 2014, in the Haviva Reick Garden, located on the premises of Museum SNU. Apart from the hundred candles, a rich and interesting cultural program was presented. A 1940s atmosphere was created, enhanced with original recordings of seasoned, long-forgotten songs and a live band. Archival photographs of Haviva, a resistance fighter and, above all, a young non-conventional woman full of ideals and unfulfilled plans, were projected onto the building’s walls. The 100th anniversary of Haviva Reick’s birth (July 22, 2014) and the 70th anniversary of her violent death (November 20, 1944) served as the occasions for a series of cultural and awareness-raising events for schools and the general public in Slovakia.
