“It’s better than the Holocaust – but these are not really alive”

178,400 Holocaust survivors Living in Israel today. About a quarter of them are below the poverty line. Ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, in a special series of articles on Ynet and Yedioth Ahronoth We have shown their faces every day for the past few weeks, We revealed the conditions in which we live, we cried out the cry of those who were forgotten behind. “Abandoned to their fate,” is what we called a project designed to remind us all to look into the eyes of those who managed to survive the Holocaust, but struggle every day to survive the State of Israel. “I’m constantly in a war for survival,” said one of them.

Thousands of inquiries have been received by the system in recent weeks following the project. Hundreds of thousands of shekels were donated, medicines, scooters and heating equipment for the winter were purchased. Many also volunteered to pay the survivors’ electricity bills so they could afford to light an oven on cold nights. Others volunteered to cook for them regularly. Contractors and engineers offered to renovate their home and there were also those who undertook to visit and host a company for them, so that they would not feel more lonely.

References to us and the associations that accompany the survivors came from all over the country and society. Single mothers, lone soldiers, childless seniors, teenagers and families with many children also insisted on sharing what little they had, to allow survivors to grow old with dignity. It is exciting to discover that the public in the country is mobilizing to help where the government is failing. That even in a time of economic crisis, it stands by the side of the weak and needy.

Thank you good people for the light and hope you have scattered, for not agreeing to close your eyes in the face of a situation in which the government is abandoning elderly Holocaust survivors. These are the stories of those survivors who seek to live with dignity.

Felix Khalfin’s family managed to escape from the Nazis at the last minute and escape to Kazakhstan. His father returned to a town in Moldova and was murdered, and his mother remarried after World War II. Halpin, who contracted polio and one of his legs was paralyzed, worked for about 30 years as a nurse in Donetsk hospitals. He has never married and has no children.

In 1990, Halpin immigrated to Israel, following his mother and husband, studied Hebrew for two years and spoke it only at a basic level. Due to his age and health condition, Halpin is unable to cook food for himself, and apart from the assistant who comes to his house for two hours a day – there is no one to help him.

According to him, what saves him are the visits to the day center for the elderly, but during the Corona period many restrictions were placed on the day centers – and he was left alone most of the time at home. “What I miss now is being in touch with other people, talking to them. The feeling of loneliness accompanies me.”

Chaim Margolis’ parents were killed in German bombing raids in Romania during the Holocaust, and Chaim was forced to hide to survive: “For months I hid in churches to be thought of as a Christian.” After the war he met his wife Rachel, who was also an orphan, and together they started a family and immigrated to Israel.

About three years ago, Rachel passed away after years of dealing with illness and dementia. Since her death he has been in a daily struggle. Health problems make it difficult for him, as well as household chores, cleaning and cooking. “I don’t have teeth so I can only eat ground things, which is a problem. When I eat it is not voluntary, but for not dying.”

But his greatest difficulty is loneliness. Up to the corona it received visits from children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but with the outbreak of the plague the visits dwindled due to government restrictions and the fear of catching it. “When I’m alone in the house it’s death, I talk to the walls. It’s very difficult to have anyone to talk to.”

Amram Vaknin was born in 1941 in Casablanca, Morocco, “I was born into this reality. I was told that my father would leave us in all sorts of places and go look for us food. The Jews there suffered greatly. For five years we fled from city to city.”

In 1951, Amram immigrated to Jerusalem with his mother and brother, served in the Golani and met his wife Kochava, with whom he lives to this day. More than a year ago, Amram had a stroke, his medical condition is very complex and he also needs expensive dental care that he cannot afford. His wife’s health is not good either. “We have no children, and no one is helping us,” he said.

Over the years, Amram and his wife have fallen into debt, which currently stands at NIS 60,000. Because they are unable to repay the debt, the account line has been reduced accordingly and they are unable to pay bills like electricity and rent. “I live in a circle from which there is no way out,” Amram said. “It stresses me out, I have no money and no one to help me. All my brothers have died, I have nothing left here. My wife and I – that’s what it is.”

Mira Klioner was 3 years old when she came to her city in Belarus during World War II, but she remembers well everything that happened then. “I remember riding with my mother and sister on a mass transport train with cows in a trailer when suddenly German fighter jets bombed the train. I was small and did not understand why one had to leave the train. I cried and shouted that I did not want to run, that I wanted candy, .

After the war the family reunited and returned to her hometown, where they found out that the grandmother had been killed by a bomb that fell on the house. Mira got married, but her husband was a heavy drinker, and the two divorced shortly after. She did not remarry and had no children, and today she lives alone.

“It’s hard for me to live like this, I get a pension of a little over NIS 3,000 and from that money I have to pay rent, water, property taxes, and electricity,” she said. “I know how to save. It’s an ability I’ve developed over the course of my life to have money to buy food.”

The cold haunted Nona Ozdovsky as a child in Siberia during the Holocaust. “I ran away from the Nazis with my mother and my brother. We were without anything, without water and without food. We slept on the floor in people’s houses. We were given blankets, but it was not enough. The cold was terrible.”

After the war she married and had a son, and when she was 51 her husband died. A few years later she immigrated to Israel alone, worked hard until the age of 79, but the effort did not help and the difficulties haunt her even now. “I do not have a pension and the allowances I receive are not enough. I have to pay for rent, food, electricity, gas and water, and there is not enough money for all this.”

Her son, daughter-in-law, grandchildren and great-grandchildren help her as much as they can, but during the Corona period they avoid visiting due to the limitations of the plague. In addition to all, her health condition is not good and also the physical condition of the house requires quite a few repairs. “I am very weak, I am constantly dizzy. I do not allow myself to buy meat, even on holidays, it is expensive for me.”

The memories of Yaffa Simhon from the Holocaust period in Morocco do not leave her to this day. “My father took me and my sister to the hospital because I had an eye infection and my sister was bitten by a dog. They told him that if he came in he could not go out. They plucked out my eye and told my father that my sister was dead and buried her, since we do not know what about her. In the hands of the Nazis. “

She immigrated to Israel with her parents and sisters in 1952, and for many years worked as a balanit in the mikveh. Today she maintains a small pension and a tiny pension. “It’s not old age, it’s the age of hell. I had dental problems and I paid a lot of money for it. I have other problems and I can not afford to continue treatments.”

Yaffa lives alone with great modesty and calculates her expenses meticulously. “Instead of buying food I buy medicine. I have a hard time paying electricity bills. If I want to heat the house I do not turn on the air conditioner, I put some more rags on my body. I never buy new clothes, sometimes I buy second hand, and sometimes the daughter Mine buys me. “

Prof. Lev Petrov remembers the horrors of World War II that he experienced in a child in Leningrad, and what he experienced from the Nazis. “They put me and my mother on a truck and we drove over a frozen river. Suddenly a German bomb started and the truck overturned into the water. Most of the children drowned and died, they managed to save me, but I got sick and really fought for my life.”

Over the years, he studied physics and economics and built a glorious and fascinating career, and yet he dreamed of one thing – to immigrate to Israel. 14 years ago he fulfilled the dream and came up. Today he lives alone, his four children are left abroad, and subsist on a meager Social Security allowance. “I spend it all on rent, bills and medicine.”

“Although my life is better than in the Holocaust, the truth is that it is not a real life,” he added. “This is a war for survival. It’s not normal for people my age to live in such a situation.”

Mordechai Pierre was born in Belgium and fled to France before World War II. “I was sent with my mother and two sisters to a concentration camp in France. I was only six years old, but I had to work and carried buckets of water. We suffered from hunger and cold there. We only got one blanket, so my mother covered us sideways with our feet outside.”

At the end of the war he immigrated to Israel, met his wife, and the two gave birth to three children. Mordechai worked for the police and a steel factory for tanks, and refuses to rely on help from the children. “The state does not allow people like us to grow old with dignity. Before the corona, I still managed, now I am ashamed to say that I have reached an overdraft of NIS 15,000.”

He currently lives in sheltered housing, but has been forced to cut back on food. “I limit myself to food, eat little because I’m afraid it won’t be later. The food package I get – I share with my brother who lives with me in the sheltered housing.”

Albert Segal was born in Romania, and for two years hid from the Nazis with his mother in the basement. At the age of 23, he immigrated to Israel with his father, who was released from the labor camp, and met his wife Nili at the Habima Theater. 18 years ago they experienced a terrible disaster that changed their lives – one of their children, grandson and daughter-in-law were killed in an accident.

“It is a tragedy from which it is impossible to recover,” says Albert. Following the mental collapse also came an economic collapse. They were forced to sell their house, moved between apartments, and today they live in a two-room apartment in sheltered public housing.

Albert dreams of enlisting the help of his wife, who needs psychological treatment, and means to improve her vision: “The most painful thing for Nili is that she can not read books, the most painful thing for me – that I can not help her.”