About the Author

Malka Levine was born in Volodymyr in what is today north-western Ukraine. After the Holocaust her mother took Malka and her brothers to live in Israel. Malka married a British journalist and moved to Britain. Today she is widowed with two children and lives near Nottingham. She appeared in the documentary Getting Away With Murders, an investigation into why so many perpetrators of the Holocaust went unpunished. Our Mother's Courage is her first book.

Reviews

A deeply humane memoir, of immense power - there is nothing more affecting than a first hand experience finely told
*Philippe Sands*

Malka’s survival story may be one of many but it is unique in the telling. To be hidden, by a gentile family who barely knew them, at huge risk to themselves, in a pit of soil and gravel, frozen by devastating Ukranian/Polish winters, fed, like animals on scraps of bread and a few potatoes and desperately sustained by a grieving mother on frozen snow to drink and concocted family stories to keep their minds alive, is the stuff of great drama and often, in the manner of Jewish humour, wry comedy . . . a fabulous memoir
*Dame Maureen Lipman*

When you read Malka's story you cannot help experiencing rage at how low human beings can stoop and, at the same time, endless admiration for the best of humanity shown by Malka's utterly courageous mother and the Ukrainian Mrs Yakimchuk who risked everything to shelter Malka's family . . . a deeply poignant memoir
*Jonathan Arkush, (President, Board of Deputies of British Jews 2015-2018)*

[An] extraordinary account of mankind’s inhumanity to man. Although tragic, it offers hope too because of the role played by Righteous Gentiles in keeping the author’s family safe.
*John Bowers KC, Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford*

Vividly and compellingly transports us to a world of incredible deprivation and breathtaking survival . . . A Mother’s Courage is a fresh and powerful work of Holocaust testimony and we are the richer for it
*Ruth Maxey, Associate Professor of Modern American Literature, University of Nottingham*

A vivid, compelling book that reminds us of the horrors of the Holocaust but also the resilience of the human spirit . . . both moving and ultimately hopeful
*Donald Ferencz, human rights advocate and attorney*