by Judy Batalion
Judy Batalion’s book (William Morrow, 2020) is promoted as “one of the most important untold stories of World War II,” and this claim is true to an extent. While some of the couriers she writes about are generally unknown, others have been written about before.
It would be hard to cite another recent book on the Holocaust that has received as much media and organizational attention as The Light of Days. Batalion weaves together the story of the female couriers whose heroism made a great contribution to Jewish underground activities during the Holocaust. Using diaries, individual memoirs, interviews, and archival research, she brings us the experiences of the brave girls and young women (aged about 15 to 25) who played major and sometimes minor heroic resistance roles against all odds in Hitler’s ghettos.
Her primary heroes are Renia Kukielka. Bela Hazan (aka Bronislawa Limanowska) and Chajka Klinger based in Bedzin, as well as Zivia Lubetkin and Vladka Meed, based in Warsaw. They were all couriers or Kashariyot (connectors) in Hebrew. All of them left writings that told their stories. But Batalion brings us many other names, some known and some relatively unknown to most readers.
The names of Chaika Grossman, Niuta Teitelbaum (Little Wanda with the braids), Vitka Kempner, and Tosia Altman are familiar to people with general knowledge of the Holocaust. But Batalion presents readers with a plethora of other names, some with extensive and some with scant background: Henia Reinhartz, Renia Aaron, Idzia Pejsachson, Fruma and Hantze Plotnicka, Gusta Davidson, Hanka Blas, Hela Schupper, Gola Mire, Rifka Glanz, Chana Gelbard, Chasia Bielicka, Lonka Kozibrodska, Miriam Heinsdorf, Masha Futermilch, Lea Koren, Regina Fuden, Dvora Baran, Rivka Pasternak, Rachel Kirshnboym, Frania Beatus, Masha Gleitman, Ina Gelbart, Adina Blady Szwajger, Blanka Kibanski, Havka Folman, Tema Schneiderman, Chasia Bielicka, Leah Hammerman, Ilza Hansdorf, Aliza Zitenfeld, Rivka Moscovitch, Bronka Feinmesser, Rivka Glanz, Ina Gelbart, Chawka Lenczner, Shoshana Gjedna, Ruzka Korczak, Zelda Treger, Sonia Madejsker. Perhaps some of these names are unknown because the young women were murdered, and others survived but told of their experiences in languages other than English. Listing their names honors them.
Read a book review written by Rochelle G. Saidel for Hadassah Magazine here.