Mother’s Courage: A Promise During the Holocaust – Malka Levine

Mother’s Courage by Malka Levine is a deeply powerful narrative that centers on her mother Rivka — a resolute, courageous woman whose unwavering promise, “Save the children,” became the guiding force that sustained her family through the horrors of the Holocaust.

At just three years old, Malka was deported with her family to the Volyn ghetto (Ludmyr, formerly Lyudmyr-Volynskyi). Her father perished during the Nazis' first attack, but Rivka bravely kept her promise. For eighteen grueling months, she sheltered Malka and her two older brothers, despite the unrelenting brutality surrounding them. Amidst fear and despair, acts of humanity—like a Wehrmacht officer sparing them from execution, a Polish tailor hiding the boys, and the Yakymchuk farmers sheltering them in a secret pit for nine months—offered flickers of hope.

This memoir reframes survival through compassion and solidarity. Published by Laboratorija in 2024, the Ukrainian paperback edition spans 224 pages, measures 140 × 210 mm, and weighs approximately 230 g. Levine’s heartfelt story is both a remembrance and a tribute to maternal bravery.