A Mother's Courage: How I survived the Holocaust - a remarkable story of bravery, kindness and hope

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Malka Levine

A Mother's Courage

How I survived the Holocaust - a remarkable story of bravery, kindness and hope

Malka Levine

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English

Macmillan
29 August 2023

Biography; Autobiography: historical, political & military; Memoirs; True stories of heroism, endurance & survival; The Holocaust; Religious groups: social & cultural aspects

A Mother's Courage is Holocaust survivor Malka Levine's powerful and moving tribute to a determined and resourceful woman who refused to give up hope so long as her children needed her.

Malka was three when the German invaders forced her family into the Jewish ghetto in Volodymyr-Volynskyi, a city in present-day Ukraine. Her father was killed in the first pogrom, but before he died he said to her mother Rivka: 'save the children'. And despite her heartbreak, that is what she set out to do.

Rivka kept Malka and her two older brothers alive through eighteen traumatic months, as the ghetto got smaller and smaller. They saw the worst of humanity but there were acts of kindness too. A Wehrmacht officer saved them from being shot in the second pogrom and a Polish dressmaker hid Malka's brothers in her shop.

Above all, the Yakimchuks, a shrewd Ukrainian farmer and his saintly wife, risked their lives to hide the family just as time was running out for the final Jewish survivors. When the SS commandeered the farm, the Yakimchuks dug a pit under the barn, and there Malka's family stayed through a long, freezing winter and into the summer, coming close to discovery on more than one occasion. At the end of the war, with no home and no money, Rivka was forced to draw on her strength yet again as she set out to create a new life for herself and her children.

By: Malka Levine
Imprint: Macmillan
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 233mm, Width: 154mm, Spine: 20mm
Weight: 342g
ISBN: 9781035025015
ISBN 10: 1035025019
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 29 August 2023
Recommended Age: From 18 years
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Malka Levine was born in Volodymyr in what is today north-western Ukraine. After the Holocaust her mother took Malka and her brothers to live in Israel. Malka married a British journalist and moved to Britain. Today she is widowed with two children and lives near Nottingham. She appeared in the documentary Getting Away With Murders, an investigation into why so many perpetrators of the Holocaust went unpunished. Our Mother's Courage is her first book.

Reviews for A Mother's Courage: How I survived the Holocaust - a remarkable story of bravery, kindness and hope

A deeply humane memoir, of immense power - there is nothing more affecting than a first hand experience finely told * Philippe Sands * When you read Malka's story you cannot help experiencing rage at how low human beings can stoop and, at the same time, endless admiration for the best of humanity shown by Malka's utterly courageous mother and the Ukrainian Mrs Yakimchuk who risked everything to shelter Malka's family. This book is not just a deeply poignant memoir paying tribute to a brave and indomitable mother, it is history brought to life. * Jonathan Arkush, (President, Board of Deputies of British Jews 2015-2018) * A vivid, compelling book that reminds us of the horrors of the Holocaust but also the resilience of the human spirit. Malka's story of her family's survival in the face of mind-numbing adversity is both moving and ultimately hopeful. * Donald Ferencz, human rights advocate and attorney * This timely book chronicles one mother’s courage and the fate of a generation. It is poignant to compare the scene in November 1942 when the book starts in Western Ukraine with what is happening now in that benighted land . . . [an] extraordinary account of mankind’s inhumanity to man. Although tragic, it offers hope too because of the role played by Righteous Gentiles in keeping the author’s family safe. * John Bowers KC, Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford *