Books@Night (Zoom)

This month’s selection: The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos By Judy Batalion

Witnesses to the brutal murder of their families and neighbors and the violent destruction of their communities, a cadre of Jewish women in Poland — some still in their teens — helped transform the Jewish youth groups into resistance cells to fight the Nazis. Yet the exploits of these courageous resistance fighters have remained virtually unknown. Judy Batalion, the granddaughter of Polish Holocaust survivors, takes us back to 1939 and introduces us to Renia Kukielka, a weapons smuggler and messenger who risked death traveling across occupied Poland on foot and by train. Joining Renia are other women who served as couriers, armed fighters, intelligence agents, and saboteurs, all who put their lives in mortal danger to carry out their missions. Batalion follows these women through the savage destruction of the ghettos, arrest, and internment in Gestapo prisons and concentration camps, and for a lucky few, like Renia, who orchestrated her own audacious escape from a brutal Nazi jail, into the late 20th century and beyond.
Powerful and inspiring, The Light of Days is an unforgettable true tale of war, the fight for freedom, exceptional bravery, female friendship, and survival in the face of staggering odds.–(Publisher’s blurb)

Email requests for the Zoom link should be sent to adulted@tba-ny.org by March 18.