Malka was born in Tel Aviv on November 21,1926. The family were orthodox Gur Hassids. Her father, Reb Mordechai Mendel Granevitch, and mother Rachel, made aliya from Poland 1924. They were among the founders of the religious settlement Bnei-Brak. After several years, they moved to south Tel Aviv.
Jewish education brought her family members to the religious nationalist wing. In 1944, in her brother’s footsteps, Malka joined Lehi’s Hebrew Liberation war. At first she worked as a messenger and weapons courrier. Transferred later to the Operations branch, she participated in Lehi’s biggest operation, the attack on the Haifa Railways workshops June 18,1946.This operation achieved its goal but during their retreat the fighters were ambushed; eleven fighters were killed and many others wounded and arrested, including Malka, hit by a bullet causing severe spinal injuries.
Despite her physicians’ doubts, she survived, due to her unshakeable faith and powerful will. She regained walking ability after difficult operations. She nevertheless stood trial in a British military court, before recovering, along with three women and eighteen male comrades. The women were sentenced to life imprisonment at Bethleham Women’s Prison, while the men got the death penalty; it was later reduced to life imprisonment. When Arab gangs began attacking the Jewish population, following November 29,1947, she was transferred with the other Jewish detainees to Atlit Prison Camp.
Disguised as policewoman, she managed to escape shortly before establishment of the State. In 1949, she married Etzel member Menachem Hepner, who’d been arrested and imprisoned at Latrun and exiled to Kenya, Africa. They had two children, Edna and Gideon (who died of cancer on December 23, 1996, twenty years after his mother’s death), and seven grandchildren. She suffered from her injury the duration of her life, needing frequent surgery and orthopedic treatment. Two years after being diagnosed with cancer, on Hannuka Eve November 28,1975, Malka, merely 49 years old, returned her soul to her Creator.
Three years after her passing, her diary was published in the book ‘In Your Blood My Life ‘(Hadar Publications, 1978).