Writers Bloc, USC Shoah Foundation, and Holocaust Museum LA Present
Judy Batalion: The Jewish “Ghetto Girls” Who Fought the Nazis
Wednesday, June 16, 2021
5:00PM PDT
Watch the conversation here:
Support authors and local bookstores by ordering a copy of The Light of Days from Chevalier’s Books here.
In Judy Batalion‘s landmark new book about unthinkable bravery in the face of certain death, we learn about Hitler’s “ghetto girls,” Jewish teenagers and young women who played a vital role in Jewish resistance to the Nazis. In The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos, Batalion unveils countless stories of ingenuity, ferocity, and daring by these girls and young women who fought the Nazis in Hitler’s ghettos in Poland. They blew up trains. They smuggled food and guns. They distributed false papers. They built bombs from a recipe unearthed in an old Russian pamphlet. They bought munitions. They spied. They sabotaged Hitler’s supply lines. They killed Nazis. These “ghetto girls” used their brilliance, their bravery, and often their beauty, to fight their captors.
Batalion’s accounts of these WWII resistance fighters show the range and breadth of the resistance effort– from the dazzling to the mundane, and the lucky to the tragic.The Light of Days brings these resistance fighters’ stories to light through diaries, personal accounts, interviews, and extensive research. It is spellbinding and thrilling.
Nancy Spielberg is a writer and producer. She is the Executive Producer of Who Will Write Our History, which explored the secret collection of photos, documents, posters, and accounts of how people lived and died in the Warsaw Ghetto. She is also the producer of documentaries such as GI Jews: Jewish Americans in WWII; Mimi and Dona; and Elusive Justice: The Search for Nazi War Criminals.
Author photo credit: Beowulf Sheehan
