The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos [Hardcover]

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One of the most important stories of World War II, already optioned by Steven Spielberg for a major motion picture: a spectacular, searing work of Holocaust history that brings to light the extraordinary accomplishments of brave Jewish women who became resistance fighters—a group of unknown heroes whose exploits have never been chronicled in full, until now.

Witnesses to the brutal murder of their families and neighbors and the violent destruction of their communities, a cadre of Jewish women in Poland—some still in their teens—helped transform the Jewish youth groups into resistance cells to fight the Nazis. With courage, guile, and nerves of steel, these “ghetto girls” paid off Gestapo guards, hid revolvers in loaves of bread and jars of marmalade, and helped build systems of underground bunkers. They flirted with German soldiers, bribed them with wine, whiskey, and home cooking, used their Aryan looks to seduce them, and shot and killed them. They bombed German train lines and blew up a town’s water supply. They also nursed the sick, taught children, and hid families.

Yet the exploits of these courageous resistance fighters have remained virtually unknown.

As propulsive and thrilling asHidden Figures, In the Garden of Beasts,andBand of Brothers,this piece of WWII historical nonfiction at last tells the true story of these incredible women whose courageous yet little-known feats have been eclipsed by time.The Light of Daysintroduces us to their world. Judy Batalion—the granddaughter of Polish Holocaust survivors—takes us back to 1939 and introduces us to Renia Kukielka, a weapons smuggler and messenger who risked death traveling across occupied Polandlsf