Sally Hayton Keeva

Valiant Women in War and Exile: Thirty-eight True Stories Sally Hayton Keeva

Fourteen-year-old Hungarian Sara Fabri was deported to Auschwitz during World War II. Sara was separated from her parents, her head was shaved, and she was given rags to wear. That first night, she wished for death until another woman put her arm around her and said, "You aren't alone. We are your family."

The result of five years of research and sixty interviews, this collection of inspiring stories of survival, first published in the 1980?s, is as profoundly moving today as it was then. As Americans continue to struggle with the dilemma, costs, and sacrifices of war, this timeless collection of women?s personal accounts still poses powerful, relevant questions. Their stories cross political and cultural boundaries, and include every major war from pre-World War I Europe to the jungles of Central America in the 1980s.

With a new introduction, the author connects the poignant testimonies to contemporary issues of war, and describes the common voice she heard as she interviewed these women ? a voice distinctively different from the traditional experience of men at war: " War is not suspended in time, something outside a woman?s experience of life; it is part of life, woven into all the rest."

These mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives endured concentration camps, atomic bombs, homeland invasions, terrorism, and guerilla warfare. Some were nurses, nuns, or social workers. Some were soldiers, prisoners, spies or snipers. Whether in combat or serving in refugee camps, they took active command of their lives and did what had to be done. These victims, survivors, and leaders describe the lifelong physical, emotional and spiritual impact of their grief, terror and loss. Their accounts reveal that for women, war is not about glory and camaraderie and heroism. Instead, it is about the quiet valor born of individual suffering and triumph over adversity.