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November 20: The Parachutist
lawrencebush
November 20, 2012
On this date in 1944, Ha
viva Reick, one of 32 Jewish parachutists from left Zionist circles in Palestine who were sent by the British on military missions in Nazi-occupied Europe, was executed along with forty Jewish partisans and community leaders whom she had helped to rescue in the mountains of Slovakia, her native country. Reick was a member of Hashomer Hatzair who had emigrated to Palestine in 1939. When the British Special Operations Executive asked the Palmach for Jews with military training and a knowledge of Central Europe, she was one of three women accepted. An uprising was underway in Slovakia, seeking to detach the country from the Axis powers. When the British refused to parachute her behind enemy lines because of her gender, Reick hitched a ride with American pilots and dropped in by herself. In the six weeks of activity before their capture by Ukrainian fascist troops, she and four other parachutists organized a soup kitchen and community center for refugees in Banská Bystrica, and helped Jewish children escape to Hungary and then Palestine. They also rescued several Allied airmen when their planes were shot down. In September, 1945, Reick’s remains were exhumed from a mass grave and reburied in a Prague military ceremony. Seven years later, she was reburied again, in Jerusalem. Kibbutz Lahavot Haviva, the Givat Haviva institute, a small river, a gerbera flower, and several other sites and streets in Israel are named for her.
“Nine of the Jewish parachutists were sent to Romania, three to Hungary, five to Slovakia, ten to Yugoslavia, three to Italy and two to Bulgaria. The first group was dropped into Yugoslavia in May 1943; the last was dropped in southern Austria on the last day of the war. Of the 32 volunteers, twelve were captured. Seven of the twelve were subsequently executed, including Haviva Reick in Slovakia and Hannah Senesh in Hungary.” —Jewish Virtual Library
JEWDAYO ROCKS: Norman Greenbaum, who wrote and performed “Spirit in the Sky,” was born on this date in 1942.
viva Reick, one of 32 Jewish parachutists from left Zionist circles in Palestine who were sent by the British on military missions in Nazi-occupied Europe, was executed along with forty Jewish partisans and community leaders whom she had helped to rescue in the mountains of Slovakia, her native country. Reick was a member of Hashomer Hatzair who had emigrated to Palestine in 1939. When the British Special Operations Executive asked the Palmach for Jews with military training and a knowledge of Central Europe, she was one of three women accepted. An uprising was underway in Slovakia, seeking to detach the country from the Axis powers. When the British refused to parachute her behind enemy lines because of her gender, Reick hitched a ride with American pilots and dropped in by herself. In the six weeks of activity before their capture by Ukrainian fascist troops, she and four other parachutists organized a soup kitchen and community center for refugees in Banská Bystrica, and helped Jewish children escape to Hungary and then Palestine. They also rescued several Allied airmen when their planes were shot down. In September, 1945, Reick’s remains were exhumed from a mass grave and reburied in a Prague military ceremony. Seven years later, she was reburied again, in Jerusalem. Kibbutz Lahavot Haviva, the Givat Haviva institute, a small river, a gerbera flower, and several other sites and streets in Israel are named for her.
“Nine of the Jewish parachutists were sent to Romania, three to Hungary, five to Slovakia, ten to Yugoslavia, three to Italy and two to Bulgaria. The first group was dropped into Yugoslavia in May 1943; the last was dropped in southern Austria on the last day of the war. Of the 32 volunteers, twelve were captured. Seven of the twelve were subsequently executed, including Haviva Reick in Slovakia and Hannah Senesh in Hungary.” —Jewish Virtual Library
JEWDAYO ROCKS: Norman Greenbaum, who wrote and performed “Spirit in the Sky,” was born on this date in 1942.
