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Survived to tell: They went through the worst of all - and rose up strengthened in the Jewish state | Israel today

2022-01-25T22:09:48.869Z


They lost their loved ones, survived the Holocaust - and managed to immigrate to Israel and start a family • Four survivors, four stories about power and the victory of the spirit • A special project for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, to be celebrated tomorrow


They managed to immigrate to Israel and start a family after surviving the inferno and losing their loved ones.

In a special "Israel Today" project, on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which will be marked tomorrow, four survivors tell of the victory of the spirit.

"I swore I would dedicate my life to helping the weak" - Shelly Choshen, 91

Shelly Choshen, chairman of the Yad Beid Association, a Holocaust survivor, is celebrating her 91st year, and does not stop volunteering even for a moment. As a young girl in Bulgaria, Shelly was a prisoner with her family in a concentration camp in the country. : "If I manage to stay alive, I will immigrate to Eretz Israel and make sure that no child suffers or remains hungry."

Choshen.

"Survivors deserve a good return," Photo: Yehoshua Yosef

In the IDF, she served as an officer in the Medical Corps, went on to study education and psychology, after which she worked at a school as an educational consultant, in addition to volunteering at WIZO.

Exactly 40 years ago, the engine of volunteer activity became the center of her life, when she founded the "Hand in Hand" association, an organization that works for the underprivileged populations in Israel.

In the first years of the association's establishment, Shelly founded a center called "Attentive Ear," which was a hotline for children from vulnerable families and their parents.

Its activity is reflected, for example, in the establishment of the association's "warm homes" - afternoon clubs, which daily host children aged 7-3 from welfare families.

Following the heartbreaking stories that emerged from the focus, Shelly decided to expand its activities to older people as well.

Since the Corona broke out, I have continued to come to the offices of the Hand in Hand Association, and win over the activity.

"With all due respect, in quotes, the fear of contracting the virus is null and void in relation to the inquiries I receive from dozens of Holocaust survivors, whose condition is very poor and many of whom have no heating or food. Do they not deserve a good return? It is not right, and must be treated."

Shelley has won a number of awards and medals, including the President's Medal for Volunteer, Dear Tel Aviv City and more, and these only sharpen the essence of her life for her. "I will continue to help as long as I can, with all my heart.

There is no other option, "she shared.

"Immigrating to Israel gives me strength to continue" - Bella Hadash, 90

The happy character of 90-year-old Bella does not reveal her experiences, as the only survivor of her family, which she lost in the Holocaust when she was only 11 years old.

For years she wandered from where she was born, on the borders of Belarus, until she came to Argentina.

She recently immigrated to Israel with the help of the Friendship Foundation, to live with her relatives.

New.

"Feels like I'm at least 100 years old," Photo: Raanan Cohen, Foundation, Friendship

Bella grew up as the eldest of three sisters in a Hasidic family in eastern Poland.

"We were sent to the ghetto, where we suffered from harsh living conditions. When a decision was made to send all the Jews to Majdanek, we hid in the basement. My mother and two younger sisters were killed after the Nazis threw a bomb at him, and my father was killed when he came out of hiding. I managed to escape. "

After escaping and recovering, Bella joined the partisans.

After the war, while wandering among DP camps in Europe, she learned to be a nurse and cared for the wounded.

There she met who would later become her husband, Abraham, whose she married after reuniting with him in Argentina.

Avraham died 30 years ago, but Bella is not alone.

She has a daughter, eight grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren, and another great-grandchild will soon be added to the family.

"My grandchildren and great-grandchildren love me so much, and they're why I'm still alive," she says.

"Most of the family lives in Israel. They ring every Friday afternoon to wish me Shabbat Shalom."

After her medical condition deteriorated, she and her family decided that she should immigrate to Israel and live with her daughter, Tzila, in Givat Shmuel.

The Friendship Foundation helped her move up with the help of the local staff in Argentina.


"I feel like I'm at least 100. I thank the Friendship Foundation for helping make the dream come true, and I'm excited to be close to my family. Being with them will keep me around for a long time to come."

"For the first time in my life I was in a synagogue - and I celebrated a bar mitzvah" - Yehoshua Sinai, 82 years old

Last week, at the age of 82, Joshua Sinai showed up at the synagogue for the first time in his life, put on tefillin and went up to the Torah.

It was his Bar Mitzvah celebration, 69 years late.

"In the year I celebrated my 13th birthday my father passed away. The Bulgarian people are not a people of tradition and religion, so it did not bother me so much," he says.

Chinese.

"I will not forget the beatings my father received from the Nazis," Photo: Jonathan Shaul

Sinai was born in 1940 in Bulgaria.

His mother remained at home, and his father was sent to hard labor in labor camps.

"One Saturday we were on our way to the area of ​​the city where we lived, and on the way a Nazi jeep stopped next to us. Dad was startled and told us to hide in the woods. We were four children. I saw the Nazis beating my father to death. It's something I will never forget."

In 1948 he immigrated to Israel with his family, and they lived in Jerusalem.

Throughout his life he worked with teenagers, with an emphasis on street boys.

He served as an instructor and director of an institution for criminals, and ran institutions for children with special needs.

He then enlisted in the police force, and served for 15 years in a variety of roles.

When he moved to the "Palace" sheltered housing in Modi'in he was asked about his history, and so the fact arose that he had never celebrated a bar mitzvah.

"When they heard that I did not have a bar mitzvah ceremony, they offered to do it. At first I objected. At the age of 82, they would do me a bar mitzvah? In retrospect, I am glad they convinced me. It was the first time in my life that I was in a synagogue."

Now, on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the veteran Jerusalemite plans to visit another institution that has never been there: Yad Vashem.

"I am the kind of person who closed during the Holocaust. I grew up in Jerusalem, but to this day I have not visited Yad Vashem, but after the bar mitzvah ceremony I intend to visit there."

"Despite the great difficulties, I always kept moving forward" - Yaakov Lieberman, 88

When Jacob Lieberman was 5 years old, World War II broke out.

His mother was a housewife, and his father, Abraham, worked as a lumberjack in the woods.

In 1941 his father was drafted into the Soviet army and wounded twice during his service.

His father was captured by the Nazis along with 18 other soldiers - and managed to organize an escape route and escape with them.

Lieberman.

"It is impossible to achieve anything without effort," Photo: Yehoshua Yosef

Jacob, his mother and younger brother were smuggled to Uzbekistan with basic equipment.

For a year and a half they lived without the father of the family in very difficult conditions, with his mother working as a guard to support her children.

At the end of the war they reunited with their father in Ukraine.

Young Yaakov enlisted in the Russian army and was promoted to the rank of sergeant major, where he also met his wife, Yevgenia, and the two gave birth to two sons.

When he was almost 40 years old he was diagnosed with glaucoma.

Following surgery that did not need to be performed, irreversible damage was done to his eyes, and he went blind at 40.

When he was 64, Yaakov and Yevgenia immigrated to Israel with their children, and lived in the city of Ramla.

In May 2020, Yevgenia died and Yaakov could not take care of himself, so he moved to the Ateret Rimonim nursing home in Bnei Brak.

"It is important for me to be active, and I wait every morning for an hour of employment activity in the ward. I have connected with some tenants, and we talk about current affairs and reminisce about the past."

As for his life today, he notes: "I love the activities of the cooking group, feeling new smells and enjoying different foods every time again."

Yaakov looks back on his experience in the Holocaust, and wants to study further.

"Even during the difficult period during the Holocaust, when we were smuggled to Uzbekistan and had very basic food and equipment, we knew how to make do with what we had. No matter what difficulties I had along the way, I always kept moving forward. You can achieve nothing in life without effort," he says.

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Source: israelhayom

All news articles on 2022-01-25

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