Reviews tagging 'Child death'

The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos by Judy Batalion

9 reviews

augur01's review against another edition

4.5

Heartbreaking to say the least, but still such a necessary story to be told. The only thing that keeps me from giving it a full 5 is that the narrative jumped from person to person for the sake of suspence while I would have preferred to have fewer breaks.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Antisemitism, Murder, and War

Moderate: Rape

There are two points in the book (within the same chapter) in which beastiality comes up.

jazzsilvestri's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Death of parent, and Murder

molsreads's review

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

3.5

These girls' history and story were fascinating and well worth the read. However, the writing style and the organization was very disjointed and made it difficult to follow and connect to the girls. Eventually, I stopped trying to keep track of the people and locations and just absorbed the overall experiences these women (and men) went through. So, pros-- the story and history; cons-- the writing style and organization. But it contained a lot of information I was unaware of, and I'm glad I read it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Rape, Sexism, Sexual violence, Xenophobia, Death of parent, Murder, and War

growintogardens's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

4.5

This was the hardest thing I've ever read. It was heavily researched. While long and hard to get through, it was because of the horror and disturbing content instead of any writing issues. 

I started with the audiobook, as I often do for nonfiction. I had to stop after a while because listening to it was so rough. I definitely recommend this to anyone who'd like to know more about WWII, and/or women during wartime, as long as you can handle the grief and the violence.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Sexual harassment, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Deportation

Moderate: Abortion and Abandonment

Minor: Pregnancy

Sex and rape warnings include beastiality. Graphic depictions of child death, torture, war/fighting, suicide, etc. It's a hard read.

carissa230's review against another edition

dark emotional inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.5

There are so many books about WWII, but they each have something unique to offer. In this book we learn about the women in WWII. 

In The Light of Days we learn about the women that helped to fight in small and big ways. Some of these women gave everything they had to save others. Some suffered the ultimate sacrifice so that others would live. Some just did what they could to survive. They were all brave. They all deserved to live. They all deserve to be remembered. 

It was hard to hear some of the stories of what these women went through. Offering themselves in place of others. Sacrificing their health so that others may eat. Risking their lives so that others can cross borders into safer areas. We can only hope that if something like this happens again that we would be so brave. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Xenophobia, and Death of parent

Moderate: Vomit

smillas_tales's review

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

4.0

This book is by far the best work of WWII nonfiction that I’ve ever read, but given the subject matter it is also an incredibly difficult read. Batalion never shies away from sharing the horrible details, and the vivid picture she paints of the people involved makes it all the harder to read.

The Light of Days is a semi-chronological recount of the lives of Jewish women resistance fighters in the Polish ghettos during WWII. It centers around a couple of the most influential courier girls, but also expands much further.

To many people, myself included, WWII has taken up a big part of history lessons in school, but we only ever hear the numbers. Hearing the stories of real people, both before, during and after the war, is a completely different thing, and I’m grateful yet horrified to know these details!

Batalion does such a phenomenal job at relaying not just the actions of these incredible women, but also their thoughts and emotions, and it’s impossible not to feel like you know them! Everything is based on diaries, memoirs and other personal accounts of the war, as it’s clear how much time has gone into researching this, as it feels extremely comprehensive!

I highly, highly recommend this to everyone, as it describes parts of WWII that are not often discussed, and does so phenomenally! That being said, this book is filled to the brim with possible triggers, so please look up trigger warnings before going into it!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Sexual violence, Violence, Antisemitism, and Murder

mrgerten's review

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual assault, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

gendavis's review

challenging emotional informative inspiring sad slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Rape, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Antisemitism, Grief, Death of parent, and War

mezzarella's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

3.0

At times, The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos reads more like a fiction story than a historical text. Judy Batalion, partly motivated by her own motivation to uncover her cultural history, uses testimony and historical documents to bring new life into otherwise unknown but important figures in the Holocaust: young Jewish women who fought against an oppressive regime. 

As an American reader, the Holocaust and Allied involvement has long been hammered into the public educational system. In many ways, Americans first exposure to the Holocaust and Nazi Germany paint the Jewish people as helpless. Anne Frank is seen as a forever innocent and hopeful child who sees the good in man. Ellie Wiesel shows students that when people are placed in horrific circumstances, every man fights for himself. Batalion shows us a new and true perspective from the era. The Women Resistance Fighters were intense, loyal, and brave. Through unbelievable perseverance and determination, the Women Resistance Fighters were able to fight against the Nazi Regime. I found a great appreciation for this history book's focus on a group that has gone far too long without recognition, especially as it was written by someone of Jewish heritage. In a way, it felt as though the "helpless Jewish" narrative was finally challenged, and the strength that people had to have to endure Hitler's rule was highlighted instead. 

Batalion writes that she tried to maintain a true representation of the facts and details throughout this book, but creative liberties are taken. Dialogue is made more lively for the sake of making the book read more like a narrative, and imagery is also added for the same reason. In many places, it would be easy to confuse this with a fictional story with a large cast of characters, rather than a true story of real Jewish women. This does not necessarily come as a detriment to the story. Many readers will love the creative nonfiction approach to this history book, but I found myself liking the spots which were entirely focused on the history rather than dialogue or relationships.

As this is a story about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust's atrocities, please be aware that there are some major content warnings. Not only for the obvious police brutality, genocide, and violence, but for beastilality, rape, and disturbing body images. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Child death, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, and Medical trauma

Minor: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, and Abortion