The true story of how one promise saved a family during the Holocaust
Although I am a storyteller, this story is not mine. This book is not about me, but about those who saved me. And although the events take place in a small town in the west of Ukraine, the main idea is comprehensive - even in the darkest times, the human spirit overcomes despair, and courage overcomes fear.
Malka Levin
Malka Levin's powerful and at the same time touching story about her own mother Rivka - a determined and resourceful woman who survived the Holocaust and did not lose hope because her children needed her.
Malka was three years old when the German occupiers took her and her family to the ghetto in the city of Lyudmyr (the Jewish name of the city of Volodymyr, Volyn region). The father died during the first Nazi attack, but before his death he managed to say to Rivka: "Save the children."
Despite a broken heart and constant fear, she kept her promise. Ryvka protected Malka and her two older brothers during eighteen painful months when the actions of the Nazis and those who defected to them became increasingly brutal.
But next to the fear and horrors of the ghetto, there was room for good deeds that helped the family survive: a Wehrmacht officer who saved them from being shot; a Polish dressmaker who hid the brothers in her shop; a family of Ukrainian farmers, the Yakymchuks, who hid the family when the SS soldiers captured the farm. The Yakymchuks dug a hole under the storeroom, where Malka's family hid for nine long months, overcoming the cold, hunger and constant fear of being exposed.
At the end of the war, without a home or money, Ryvka gathered her strength again to build a new life for herself and her children.
