While conducting research on Hanna Senesh, Judy Batalion unexpectedly found the 1946 Yiddish book, Freuen in di Ghettos (Women in the Ghettos), filled with accounts about young Jewish women who defied the Nazis. These Polish-Jewish “ghetto girls” paid off Gestapo guards, hid revolvers in teddy bears, flirted with Nazis, and shot and killed them. They distributed underground bulletins, flung Molotov cocktails, bombed German supply trains, organized soup kitchens, and were bearers of the truth about what was happening to the Jews. In this talk, Judy will relay several of these women’s stories, describe her years of research into the history of Polish-Jewish resistance, and discuss why so many of these tales remained hidden for so long.

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.

Judy Batalion is the author of White Walls: A Memoir About Motherhood, Daughterhood and the Mess in Between. She has written for the New York Times, Vogue, The Washington Post and many other publications. Prior to her writing career, she was an academic and is fluent in both Yiddish and Hebrew.

Introduced by Kathryn Gabinet-Kroo, Sponsor and JPL Board Member.

In collaboration with the Montreal Holocaust Museum

Judy Batalion’s book is available for order from Bibliophile Bookstore, 514-486-7369, https://bibliophilemontreal.com/