Smithsonian Magazine
April 1, 2021

When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, sparking the beginning of World War II, the leaders of a Warsaw-based chapter of the Zionist HeHalutz youth movement instructed its members to retreat east. Initially, Frumka Płotnicka, a 25-year-old Jewish woman from the Polish city of Pinsk, complied with this request. But as historian Judy Batalion writes in The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos, “[F]leeing a crisis did not suit her, and she immediately asked … [to] leave the area where her family lived and return to Nazi-occupied Warsaw.”

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Good Morning America (Book Club)
April 1, 2021

This epic, sweeping tale of Jewish women resistance fighters in WWII is powerful, incredibly well-written by genius Judy Batalion, and truly changes history. Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment already has a big screen version of this in the works!

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Jewish Telegraphic Agency
March 31, 2021

They hid revolvers in teddy bears and dynamite in their underwear. They learned how to make lethal Molotov cocktails and fling them at German supply trains. The girls with “Aryan” features who could pass as non-Jews flirted with Nazis – plying them with wine, whiskey and pastry before shooting them dead.

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Lilith
March 22, 2021

Judy Batalion is a first-class disrupter. In her fascinating—and essential—new book, The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in in Hitler’s Ghettos(HarperCollins, $28.99) she cracks the myth of Jewish victimhood—and in particular Jewish women’s victimhood—wide open, and recounts so many instances of cunning and chutzpah that it will upend everything you thought you knew about the subject.

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Hadassah Magazine
March 2021

It has been nearly 40 years since philosopher Joan Ringelheim and historian Esther Katz brought together Holocaust studies and women’s studies in the conference “Women Surviving: The Holocaust,” highlighting the lack of scholarship on gender issues during the cataclysm. Integrating women’s stories into Holocaust history is an ongoing task, and Judy Batalion’s extraordinary new book, The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos (HarperCollins), is an important part of the continuum of research begun at that historic 1983 conference in New York City.

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Hey Alma
March 19, 2021

During World War II, armed resistance leader Zivia Lubetkin attacked German soldiers as they attempted to round up residents of the Warsaw Ghetto. Then she led fellow Jews to safety through the city’s sewer system.

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New York Times
March 18, 2021

In 1943, Niuta Teitelbaum strolled into a Gestapo apartment on Chmielna Street in central Warsaw and faced three Nazis. A 24-year-old Jewish woman who had studied history at Warsaw University, Niuta was likely now dressed in her characteristic guise as a Polish farm girl with a kerchief tied around her braided blond hair.

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Bustle
February 24, 2021

Renia Kukielka. Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell. Louise Little. Many may have forgotten their names and deeds, but these strong and influential women have been resurrected in a slate of new nonfiction titles. If your TBR needs a little nonfiction TLC, consider adding one of these seven books that celebrate history’s forgotten women to your list.

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Deadline
November 2, 2020

EXCLUSIVE: Amblin Partners is developing a screen adaptation to the soon to be released The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos from Canadian-born author Judy Batalion. The book documents the stories of female Jewish resistance fighters who served as saboteurs, couriers, and caretakers of those in hiding during the occupation of Poland during World War II.

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Booklist
June 1, 2020

Stories of Jewish women who resisted the Nazi regime have been woefully neglected in modern history. Their truths were overshadowed by male counterparts, censored, criticised, and occasionally regarded as outright false. Batalion (White Walls, 2016) sheds light on courageous women who came face-to-face with evil and refused to back down. 

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The Independent
May 29, 2020

Female suffering – and bravery – are themes running through some of the best novels and non-fiction books in June, another month in which publishers, booksellers and authors have battled the knock-on effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

Judy Batalion has written a fascinating history about a little-known group who took on the Nazis.

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Real Simple
June 2020

Ghetto Girls: Judy Batalion, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, documents the true story of a group of women resistance fighters during WWII. The Light of Days is about friendship, courage, love, loyalty, and resilience — and is written so vividly, it makes perfect sense Steven Spielberg has already optioned it.

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Library Journal
May 1, 2020

The month-long uprising that followed, as well as other acts of both visible and hidden defiance that occurred in Poland and other parts of Europe throughout World War II, form the backdrop for this fascinating account of the women involved in these resistance movements.

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Publishers Weekly
March 28, 2020

Memoirist Batalion (White Walls) delivers a remarkable portrait of young Jewish women who fought in the Polish resistance during WWII.

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Kirkus Book Review
February 24, 2020

“A welcome addition to the literature of the Shoah and of anti-Nazi resistance.”

Resounding history of Jewish women who fought the German invaders in World War II.

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The Hollywood Reporter
February 8, 2018

The director's company has optioned the forthcoming book 'Daughters of the Resistance.'

Steven Spielberg is going back to World War II, this time with a female-centric point of view.

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