But Chaviva wouldn’t give up. She convinced a group of American and British officers to take her along as a translator, and when her three colleagues arrived in Banská Bystrica, she was already hard at work with the local Jews. The group engaged in relief and rescue activities: they instituted a soup kitchen and community center for refugees and helped hundreds of Jews escape to Hungary and from there to Palestine. Using Morse code, the parachutists kept the British informed about what was happening. Through their connections with partisan and resistance groups, they helped rescue allied airmen who had been shot down.
In addition, Chaviva and her colleagues also helped various Jewish groups join the uprising against the Axis-installed Slovak People’s Party of Hlinka. The uprising was supposed to coincide with Allied advances, particularly that of the Soviet Army, and create a bubble-like safe haven in Nazi territory. However, in August, the Nazis occupied Slovakia and eliminated the uprising. But Reich and her colleagues refused to leave on the last plane out. “We came to be with you and we will be with you under every condition,” Chaviva said. The parachutists escaped with about 40 local Jews into the mountains. Despite the fact that the elderly members of the group slowed them down, Chaviva refused to abandon them. Chaim Hermesh, Chaviva’s colleague who managed to escape, recalls the last horrific morning when the camp was overrun by the Germans. In November, after being imprisoned in a school in a nearby village, less than two weeks after Channah Senesh was killed in Hungary, Chaviva and the other captives were shot and buried in a mass grave.
Sarah Braverman
Twenty-year-old Sarah (Surika) Braverman, born in the Romanian city of Botosani, made aliyah in 1938 and studied agriculture. Stationed in Juara for intense training with the Palmach, Sarah and Chaviva were part of a group comprising 6 girls and 46 boys. “The responsibility of being the first women in the Palmach pressurized us day and night: if we failed there would be no more enlistment of women,” recalls Sarah.
Like Chaviva, Sarah volunteered as a parachutist in the SOE. Unlike Chaviva, Sarah accepted the decision of the British when they canceled her mission to Romania. Later, too afraid to jump, Sarah eventually found her way onto the European battlefield after landing on the ground in a small plane. During her time in the European underground, she hid her identity from the partisans and claimed to be an English journalist. Her cover story, she stated, was ridiculous: “Whoever heard of an educated English lady who doesn’t wear makeup and knows how to milk partisan cows?” she asked.
Following her return from Europe, Sarah became one of the first women to serve in the IDF Women’s Army Corps. In a recent interview, commenting on Israel’s May 14, 1948 announcement of independence, she says, “We didn’t celebrate…we thought of all those who would be fighting and of the sacrifices to come. Three days later, three of my friends were killed. Only later, do you realize that you’ve had a part in the battle leading to a Jewish state after 2,000 years.” The dream of a Jewish state culminated for Sarah, in what she describes as the most exciting night of her life, with the establishment of Kibbutz Shamir, where she lived until 2013, when she passed away at ninety-five years old. “The night we arrived here, we wanted to dance the hora. The ground was covered with rocks, so we cleared a patch. We held tightly onto each other as if to say, ‘Be strong because there’s nothing here.’ Now look at the kibbutz today,” she says with pride. Thanks to caring and daring, the dream of these brave women became a reality.
