Reik, Haviva (1914–1944)

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Reik, Haviva (1914–1944)

Jewish resistance fighter . Name variations: Havivah. Born Haviva Emma Reik in Slovakia (now Czechoslovakia) in 1914; executed by the German military during World War II in 1944.

A native of Slovakia (now Czechoslovakia), Haviva Reik emigrated to Palestine in the late 1930s and joined the kibbutz Ma'anit. In 1944, during the Nazi occupation of Slovakia, she and three other volunteers parachuted into their former homeland to assist the Jewish resistance and to spy for the Allied forces. Reik was eventually captured by the German military and executed. In present-day Israel, she is regarded as a national hero; both the kibbutz Lehavot Haviva and the Givat Havivah research center bear her name in tribute.

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