Nothing in her role as head of the registration and exhibits squad at the Israel Police Logistics Center prepared Superintendent Anat Altman for the work she has done over the past three weeks. From the moment the war broke out, she became a shift supervisor and part of a team of hundreds of police officers who received thousands of sterile, transparent bags containing personal belongings carefully removed from the bodies of fallen soldiers.
There were wedding rings and bracelets covered in clotted blood, torn wallets and burnt ID cards. One of the thousands of bags caught Altman's attention. It had one small earring of a girl years younger. She knew that the victim's parents would want to receive every souvenir from their daughter and stubbornly searched for more of her belongings. When she turned the bag to find the sticker indicating the space's number or name, she felt her legs fail. She was a member of her husband's family, who was murdered in Bari along with her sister, parents and father's brother.
Last item touched
"After a week of sorting through personal items, imagining who those people belonged to, it was a moment of collapse. I knew I had to pick myself up and recover because doing it was a mission. To an outsider, this may sound technical, but it's the most non-technical action I've ever done. In my hands, I held memories of people and treated them with reverence, in order to give the family the item that their child or spouse touched last. I searched through candles for the second earring, but couldn't find any. Later, other items from my family came to me, such as a watch, rings and a bracelet. Last Saturday, I went to the only surviving brother and his aunt, the father's sister. It was important for me to give them what I found myself."
How did the brother react to his parents and sisters' belongings?
"It was hard for him to be there and see the things, so I gave everything to his aunt. It was a very painful and moving moment. As far as she was concerned, she received a whole world left over from her family. She wanted to know what happened to them and how they fell, but I didn't have the details. I only told her that the five had arrived in recognizable condition, which was a small consolation to her.
"Since then, I keep thinking about the brother who remained, a young man without parents or sisters. I believe he has already seen what I brought, but I respect his privacy. When he wants, I'm here."
A small ray of light. Survivors' items, photo: Yossi Zeliger
Last week, Superintendent Altman, a married mother of two, worked at a large logistics center loaned to the police in central Israel. The first thing you see is the dozens of policemen wearing purple gloves and various jewelry, makeup bags and certificates. It's hard to miss the long table on the side on which dozens of pairs of shoes are placed that were used by the revelers at the Reim party.
The sight is reminiscent of the pictures of piles of shoes outside the gas chambers and crematoria in concentration camps. Nothing less. There were sneakers, hiking shoes and various flip flops. Next to them, on enormous iron libraries, dusty bags belonging to the celebrants, a white bag containing clothes collected in the field, and one small box bearing the sticker "Items of Living Survivors" - a small ray of light in a compound crowded with bereavement.
"We received the personal items from forensic officers, who were responsible for identifying the fallen. Each bag had a number according to which we recorded the contents. I saw sooty wedding rings and necklaces and thought about the people behind them. I will never forget the perforated wallet through which a bullet passed. Perhaps this is the way its owner ended his life.
"Some of the wallets had ID cards, and the pictures tore my heart out. It is impossible not to imagine who the person is. I will always remember the phone with the unusual cover we were specifically looking for. It belonged to a young woman from the party, and the parents asked for the phone as a souvenir. Some of the belongings have no monetary value, but the sentimental value to the families left broken is priceless."
"The moment of breaking is yet to come"
Yesterday, Altman ended her activity at the logistics center for collecting martyrs' belongings, which is under the responsibility of Lahav 433, and returned to her routine work in the Investigations and Intelligence Division. "Now everything seems unrelated to reality. Nothing feels routine. I'm always looking for how I can contribute something else to the big story of the fallen. A website will soon be launched with photos of items that have not been identified so that survivors and families of fallen victims can identify them."
Do you dream at night about what you did?
"No, but I have sudden flashes of what I saw. This can happen in the middle of preparing dinner. Suddenly, a picture comes up of a certain object or the smell that was there in the air. During those three weeks, I knew I needed all the strength for the families of the fallen, but I believe that the moment of breaking will come."
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