Reake, Haviva (Martha)
Daughter of Ama and Arpad. She was born on June 22, 1914 in Chaiu Haza, Hungary, to a family without means. Her father passed away when she was a child and after completing her studies in a commercial school began working as a saleswoman in a commercial house for agricultural machines, and she was forced to support the family. At the age of fifteen she joined the Hashomer Hatzair movement in the Banska Bystrica district, a district town in Slovakia, where she was one of the active members. She trained a group of students, devoted herself to the work of the Jewish National Fund, and worked hard to learn the Hebrew language in preparation for immigration to Israel. In April 1938 she went on a training course in Bratislava. After the dissolution of the Czechoslovak Republic and the establishment of the Fascist regime in Slovakia in March 1939, she concentrated on immigration to the main leadership of Hashomer Hatzair in the country, and worked as secretary of Dr. Oscar Neumann, head of the Zionist Organization in Slovakia. She was also active in many branches, including the marketing of oranges and the management of a factory for the production of oil of lemon peel, and served as secretary of the Organization of Working Mothers in Karkur and participated in the activities conference in Kfar Sava in May 1942. In May 1942 she joined the Palmach and she underwent parachuting training at Ramat Rachel and in Cairo in British Air Force uniform. Her nickname in the army was “Paratrooper Robinson”. Her place of action was determined in an environment she had known from her youth. She arrived in Banska Bystrica, then the center of the Slovakian, on September 18, 1944, and set up a radio station for liaison with the headquarters. She also met with the Israeli paratroopers, Zvi Ben-Yaakov, Rafi Reiss and Haim Hermesh, who have been in this place for two weeks. Together they dealt with Jews living in the liberated area and contacted Jewish youth movement members who fought in partisan units. They also set up a network of transit stations from Poland to Slovakia and smuggled prisoners and Allied pilots. On October 26 the Germans captured Banska Bystrica and the paratroopers, together with members of the youth movement leadership, as Jewish leaders and their families retreated to a temporary camp in the Bukovina Mountains. Four days later, at the time of attack on the camp by Russian-Ukrainian SS men, six Jews were killed and Haviva was captured and taken to the prison in Banska Bystrica. On 13 Kislev, November 20, 1944, she was executed along with Rafael Reiss and another 200 Jews. Her body was buried in a mass grave near Krimnicka. In 1952 she was laid to rest in the Paratroopers section of the military cemetery on Mount Herzl. The book “Friends in the Kibbutz,” which Haviva took with her from Israel, is displayed at Beit Haviva on Kibbutz Maanit. It was discovered after the Nazi extermination near the camp in the Bukovina Mountains in hiding, along with the transmitter. In the vicinity of Kibbutz Maanit, Givat Haviva was established in the name of Haviva Reake, where gatherings of the Kibbutz Artzi are held. Haviva’s students in Slovakia established Kibbutz Lehavot Haviva. Her personality and history were documented in the book “As a Mother Feels to Save – The Mission of Haviva Reake” edited by Daniel Ben-Nachum. In the book “Secret Shield”, the book “History of the Haganah” and she was also immortalized in the Palmach book.
