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Holocaust Martyrs 'and Heroes' Remembrance Day

Holocaust survivors defeated the corona.

Now they are back to tell the story of their survival

"It excites me to testify in front of the soldiers," says Shoshana, who lost her parents and brother during her escape from the Nazis.

"I got vaccinated, now I tell the students," adds Hava, who survived Auschwitz.

After the complex confrontation with the corona, the Holocaust survivors and the younger generation renew the evidence from the inferno, face to face

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• Holocaust Martyrs 'and Heroes' Remembrance Day

• Corona virus

• Holocaust survivors

Sapir Levy

Wednesday, April 07, 2021, 5:00 p.m.

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Hava Friedman (Photo: Reuven Castro)

"I'm thinking about my grandparents and my kids so I'm in the mood. I'm fine. I have a big family. We had a seder night for 20 people. We'm in a very warm relationship. "I am not alone. On this Holocaust day we are going to a military camp with the Amek organization, we will talk to the soldiers. I have been vaccinated, now I am telling my story to the students and soldiers, I am a witness."

Hava Friedman, a Holocaust survivor, born in 1931, was born in Transylvania, in an area that is today divided between Romania and Hungary, today lives in Moshav Sde Moshe, in the south.

She is one of many Holocaust survivors who overcame the many difficulties of the corona year, and now return to tell their story with the help of associations such as "Your People" and projects such as "Memory in the Living Room".

The reunion, the face-to-face testimony, is taking on special significance this year for Holocaust survivors.

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"I had a very hard time. I was alone all day and in the evening my daughter Lily came to visit me."

Shoshana Sigler (Photo: Reuven Castro)

Shoshana Sigler lives in Ashkelon.

She was born in 1933. A year and a half ago, she published a book she wrote about her mother, even if she read it "with the rest of her strength."

"We were seven in the family - my parents and five brothers," she says, "talked about the Germans who were supposed to enter Poland, we went to Bialystok, Poland, where they set up a ghetto. I did not even know what a ghetto was, but I knew there was a large concentration of Jews. In one house and suddenly we had nothing. No clothes, nothing. My mother sent me to buy things because I had a 'celeb' look. I was blonde and with bright eyes. I bought bread from Christians because the shops of the Jews were simply destroyed. I remember once that the lady From the store she said ‘why do you go out like this without clothes? Your nose is frozen, here take the bread and tell mom to smear something on your nose because it is frozen.’ Mom really smeared goose fat on my nose, I do not know how she managed to get it but it Help me. "

A year ago she did not testify because of the closure.

"I had a very hard time. I was alone all day and in the evening my daughter Lily came to visit me," she says.

"I was also in solitary confinement for 12 days. Thank God we went through this. I was vaccinated twice, the routine is a bit repetitive. Amek asked me to sing the song of the year on Holocaust Day, most things will be recorded because there was no time to prepare. I will sing a song in Yiddish. "I was asked to testify in front of the soldiers, it excites me a lot and there are a few more concerns than in the hands of whites as we do every year. I hope I can get through it."

"We were hungry all the time, we were left with four from a family of seven."

Shoshana and her book "With the Rest of Her Powers" (Photo: Reuven Castro)

During the Holocaust, her father managed to smuggle the family to Kazakhstan by freight train.

After refusing to sign Russian citizenship they were exiled to a remote area of ​​Kazakhstan.

"Dad had to walk many miles to get some kernels, which Mom probably cooked and from that we could go on living. Dad did not survive, he died in that place. Mom took us with the rest of her strength and we wandered days and nights without food."

Later her mother fell ill and died.

"Separated my baby brother to another orphanage. We were hungry all the time. We always looked on the floor to look for something to eat. I went to visit my baby brother in the other orphanage, he was about two or three years old and already knew how to talk, he was so happy and cuddled me and wanted me "I will take him and I could not, because I was in my orphanage. This is the last time I saw him. There were four of us left in a family of seven."

She later became one of the "Slavino children", about 800 Jewish children, Holocaust survivors, who were gathered at the Beit Shizopoli youth aliyah, in the Italian town of Slavino, between 1945 and 1948 and was led by Moshe Zeiri, a Hebrew teacher and actor at the Habima Theater.

"We were always afraid that we would not have food. I immigrated to Israel at the age of 15 only with my sister. My brother immigrated later," she says.

She met her husband at the age of 17 and by the age of 19 she had already become a mother.

"I am a grandmother to eight grandchildren and great-grandchildren," she says.

"I saw the grandchildren and great-grandchildren on Passover after we had not met for a year. It was exciting."

One of about 800 Slavino children who were concentrated in Italy after the Holocaust.

Shoshana in her youth (Photo: Reuven Castro)

Tali Resner, psychotherapist (Photo: courtesy of the photographers)

Tali Resner, a psychotherapist, is one of the founders of the Amek organization 34 years ago, and to this day.

"We give psychological and social support to Holocaust survivors and their families. The association was founded by Holocaust survivors, some of whom were in the field of mental health. They understood that it was time to take care of the survivors' psyche, which until then had been silent about what happened to them."

In the Corona year, she said, it could be seen in generalization that Holocaust survivors knew how to deal with the new threat, situations of closure and loneliness and uncertainty.

"They were very obedient and understanding, they had strengths. We have not had such an experience before. Most of them were really inspiring for their families. They did not get into excessive anxiety from the situation," she says.

"There is a difference between a Holocaust and a plague, the Holocaust is a cruel situation that human beings have done to human beings, a trauma done by man on human beings and on the other hand the plague is a state of 'superior power'."

Still, the older survivors missed the social gatherings.

"It was difficult for the survivors to be without those friends they knew, we made an effort to zoom in and keep in touch, but it's not a relationship similar to what it was before the Corona. You could see they got more tired and less optimistic. At this age you know the end of life is approaching. "Life and I think the sights that came up for the survivors, are of people who died alone without a family and in a cruel way, there was a very great fear that this would happen to them."

"They want us to help them tell the story to their children, they are not afraid of death, they are afraid that their story will have no continuity. There is guilt for the survivor, the meaning that many Holocaust survivors found alive 'I stayed to tell a story of family and community. They are amazing and inspiring people. "We need to see what jumps they make to the social clubs after the vaccine with optimism on their faces, it's just exciting to see them. I think the vaccine did something great for us and will only continue to do so."

"The survivors had a hard time being without those friends they knew. We made an effort to zoom in on them and keep in touch."

Tali Resner (Photo: Official website, Amek)

The hardships of the Holocaust and the warm family of Hava Friedman in Moshav Sde Moshe in the south, helped her succeed in the corona year.

She expects to renew her testimonies from her childhood - her life in the ghetto and Auschwitz.

"We were parents and four sisters. During the war they took us to the Ordia ghetto and from the ghetto they took us, we took a three-day train to Auschwitz. I had an older sister who already had a three-year-old boy who also went with us to Auschwitz. They told her to give her little child and she did not agree. "It was the last time I saw them, when we got off the train."

"I was with my other two sisters and two other cousins ​​of ours. Always together. There was a three-story accommodation. We were 12 girls on one floor. It was the size of a double bed. You could not sit - just lie down, if we wanted to walk around we would say 'knife'. "'Fork' and they all had to turn around. The Germans would come and count us all the time to see if we were all there, in one of the sefirot I was already weak and then I fell to the floor, my sister gave me slaps so I would be strong for the count and alert."

"My sister was told to give her little child and she did not agree. It was the last time I saw them."

Hava Friedman (Photo: Reuven Castro)

"While Dr. Mangala was examining them, I was sliced ​​in."

"How did we get out of Auschwitz? We heard people were being taken to work. Dr. Mangala checked us out when we were naked, checked us out and those who took us to work put him in a hut, the conclusion between me and my cousins ​​was that no matter where, we would go everywhere together.

While Dr. Mengele examined them, they sliced ​​me in, we knew he would not take me because I was small. So they took us to work in Germany, the three of us worked in a factory, until the end of the war. I did not know the Americans were in the war either. When they released us they said 'you can take what "It was like a loot. We found a box of marmalade and a sack of carrots and started eating."

"I managed to get to town and no one knew me. I was bald. I wore a quilted dress, they thought I was a gypsy."

Auschwitz extermination camp (Photo: AP)

"After the war, it was impossible to go home. Someone came from my town to look for his relatives, he gave me information that my sister was at home and my uncles were at home. I managed to get to town and no one knew me. I was bald. I wore a dress we made from a blanket, they thought I was a gypsy. "And I could not enter my house, one woman expelled me but then my sister came and we were so happy. She took me to the doctor. My only sister who survived the Holocaust, died when she started giving birth. From my whole nuclear family I was left alone. I was 15."

"I immigrated to Israel at the age of 18. I was a very beautiful girl. I got married here. Suddenly I felt at home. After that I met my husband, he was a veteran in the country. Now I am a widow for more than 20 years. I live in a moshav. I have six grandchildren. All my sons My family perished in the Holocaust, but today I have a new family that I started. "

"I was left alone with my entire nuclear family."

Hava Friedman (Photo: Reuven Castro)

This year's Holocaust Day is also expressed differently among the younger generation, who host the survivors and hear their testimonies.

Maayan Hadas, 30, from Be'er Sheva, and her partner Nofar Eini host a "memory in the living room" at the pavilion.

"Memory in the living room" is a social initiative that allows a meeting on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, in the living room of a host house during which there is a testimony of a Holocaust survivor and a discussion.

A similar event hosted by her parents a few years ago moved her and exposed her to it.

"We have no family connection to the Holocaust, but I grew up on this heritage and the memory of the Holocaust, I traveled to Poland through the working and learning youth movement. The trip to Poland greatly affected me," she says.

"Last Holocaust day we participated in a zoom of a living room memory but it's not the same thing. There's great value when it comes to physically surviving and telling his story to people, looking them in the eyes and it's amazing we have the option to do that in our apartment. So that it will not be crowded. "

"I think the 'Living Room Memory' initiative is to take responsibility for how we remember the Holocaust. To make it accessible to the population. We really encourage people to participate. It's kind of a must for the younger generation. Probably in the Corona era. For the older generation human touch is so important. It has a double value because the survivors tell their story. "

"He who can not host who left the house and will be hosted"

Ran Levy, 32, also hosts a "memory in the living room" and even volunteers at the association in Tel Aviv.

He is a third generation Holocaust survivor.

"My grandfather was a boy in a labor camp in Hungary and managed to escape when they were taken to an extermination camp," he says.

"My first exposure was that I was a guest 6-7 years ago. There I realized that I ran out of all the frames that mark the memory of the Holocaust and actually unite and set this day apart. As a volunteer at the organization, I create the connection between survivors and hosts, from January we start talking to survivors The situation of the survivors is more difficult. Since the Corona it is difficult because they are much more lonely and much more alone. I call twice a year to the first survivor I hosted five years ago. Each time he amazes me with his optimism and gratitude for what is there. I highly recommend people to stay at home "Memory in the living room" because the experience is amazing. Whoever can not host who left the house and will be hosted. Do not spend this day in another black-and-white film and do not spend the day in it.

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