“Once, There Was a Woman with Three Children…”: Malka Levine’s Holocaust Survival Story

Abstract

This article examines the memoir “A Mother’s Courage” (2023) by Holocaust survivor Malka Levine, a Jewish writer, who was born in Volodymyr-Volynskyi, Ukraine (former Polish territory). At the age of three together with her mother and two brothers she experienced multiple tragic events and was saved by a Ukrainian family. The research focuses on the way the author presents a decisive role of her mother in the family’s survival during their years of persecution and displacement. The purpose of the study is to explore how Levine’s portrayal of her mother reveals an unbending spirit marked by resilience, moral determination, and conscious preservation of identity, playing a critical role in sustaining both physical survival and emotional stability under extreme conditions. The article demonstrates that maternal courage is not merely limited to physical endurance. It is expressed through daily acts of care, decision-making, and moral resolve helping to keep the family together and foster hope even “in the darkest of days.” Special attention is paid to the mother’s attempts to maintain cultural, religious, and familial identity, which function as resistance to dehumanization. The article argues that the mother’s commitment to preserving dignity, memory, and identity create a psychological and ethical foundation enabling the family to survive. By placing Levine’s memoir within the context of Holocaust life writing, the study highlights the significance of the maternal role in survival which is understood not only as an individual experience but as a collective, relational process. Ultimately, the article contributes to Holocaust studies and women’s life writing by emphasizing maternal moral strength and resilience in shaping survival during the Holocaust and postwar memory.