Marta Haviva Reik

Marta Haviva Reik (1914-1944) code names Ada Robinson and Martha Martinovich was one of a handful of Jewish people specifically recruited to work in Eastern Europe. Haviva was born in Slovakia but as a young woman she emigrated to Mandatory Palestine where she enlisted in the Haganah underground military organization as part of their elite strike force.

The SOE recruited Haviva and after training, she was to coordinate with the Slovakian uprising against Nazi occupiers. On the night of her departure, the British refused to allow her to go as there was a standing order prohibiting female soldiers from crossing Nazi lines and the SOE feared she would be shot as a spy. She was then inserted into Slovakia as part of Operation Leadburn and surprised her colleagues by meeting them in Banská Bystrica.

Reik organized Jewish resistance fighters and set up escape routes for Jews and Allied airmen, organized a soup kitchen and a refugee community center, and set up camps for escaped Russian POWs.

Nazi soldiers were detailed to put down Jewish resistance and marched on Banská Bystrica. Haviva, the other SOE agents and forty Jewish people attempted to escape but were captured. Haviva was murdered in the infamous Kremnička massacre. Seven hundred forty partisans, Romani, and Jews were herded into anti-tank trenches and shot.

Haviva and another SOE agent were exhumed and buried in Prague, and then moved to Mount Herzl in Israel. A number of streets, buildings, water structures, and a flower are named for her.