Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

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

8 reviews

cardlikecredit's review

challenging dark inspiring sad tense medium-paced

4.0

This book is not a light read by any means, but I found it to be a really interesting story that is not told enough. I liked how each woman fighter had her own feature, but the stories were woven together throughout. The ending kind of lost me. The discussion about the legacy these woman left behind was vital, but hearing about the author's driver in Poland smoking and yelling over the phone was a bit much. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Genocide, Torture, Violence, Antisemitism, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Deportation

Moderate: Gun violence, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicide, Grief, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Mental illness and Fire/Fire injury

chriswoody94's review against another edition

dark informative inspiring sad tense slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Antisemitism, and War

Moderate: Confinement, Suicide, Death of parent, and Deportation

Minor: Mental illness and Misogyny

smashmelia's review

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Mass/school shootings, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, and War

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.

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

brittyantut's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual violence 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