In Israel, there are countless stories of people whose paths cross and intertwine despite their vastly different backgrounds. Often, this creates a unique blend of a difficult past and hope for a better future. Such is the case with Shoshana, who once fled from Lebanon to Haifa with the help of Christians, and Asher, a native Hungarian who survived the Holocaust. Shoshana shared her story with our CSI colleagues Dana Nowak and Anemone Rüger, a story for which Asher still finds no words.
By Dana Nowak
My colleague Anemone Rüger and I listen intently to Shadi, the Aramean. We are in the historic town of Bar'am on the Israeli-Lebanese border. Shadi tells us about Christians in Lebanon who once helped smuggle persecuted Jews into what was then the British Mandate of Palestine. He had once given a lecture on this topic in an Israeli village. A woman approached him and told him that her mother had also been saved in this way. Anemone and I would love to meet this woman. Did he still have contact with her? "I don't know if she's still alive; it was five years ago," Shadi says as he takes out his cell phone and calls Shoshana. She remembers him, and we are welcome to come.
A day later, we stood before a small house in Rosh Pinna. It was surrounded by a sea of flowers. The fruit trees were also in bloom, filling the air with a wonderful fragrance. Shoshana was waiting at the entrance. She greeted us warmly and hugged us tightly – as if we were old friends who hadn't seen each other for a while. Visitors from Germany, interested in her story – Shoshana could hardly believe it.
“My husband Asher planted all of this; he loves nature,” says Shoshana, gesturing to the profusion of blossoms. “And he also built the garden shed and the plant supports; he’s very talented.” A little later, we meet Asher. He greets us with a firm handshake and a warm, but sad, look. Then he disappears back into the garden.
Silence, because speaking hurts
“My husband survived the Holocaust,” Shoshana said. “He doesn’t talk to anyone about what he experienced. He told me, and I’m allowed to pass on the story, but he doesn’t talk about it; it’s too difficult for him. Whenever he hears anything about the Holocaust, he starts to cry.” We are deeply moved and once again honored to be received here with such hospitality.
Shoshana is delighted with the large bouquet of flowers we brought and invites us onto her covered terrace. It's unusually hot for March. A ceiling fan provides some relief from the heat. Shoshana sets out coffee and lemonade on the table. "Made from our own lemons," she says with a smile, pointing to a small tree still laden with ripe fruit. "Asher makes the lemonade himself, and he also baked the sweet and savory cookies. You must try them," Shoshana says, and then she tells us her family's story.
“I was born in 1943 in Hadera, in what is now Israel. My grandmother came from Syria. She lived in Damascus, where my mother also grew up,” the 82-year-old explains. She adds that life was not easy for Jews in Arab countries, especially at that time. Hitler’s Nazi regime worked to win over Muslims as allies, and so there were repeated pogroms against Jews in many Muslim countries.
One by one, Shoshana's uncles and aunts fled from Syria to the British Mandate of Palestine. There were many Jews there, and her relatives hoped for a better life. "My mother didn't have her own passport, though. She was listed in my father's. When she was little, she often traveled with her father by train from Syria to what is now Israel, to Hamat Gader. There are hot springs there. My grandfather had rheumatism, and bathing there did him good," Shoshana recalls her mother telling her. During these visits, other Jews repeatedly encouraged them to stay. Her grandfather himself wasn't ready to take that step yet. But he wanted to send Shoshana's mother to join her sisters.
Failed escape
"Once he veiled her, dressed her like an old woman, and put her on the train to what is now Israel. She was still a minor then. She was supposed to go to her siblings and stay there. When she showed the conductor her ticket, he saw that it was a young woman's hand and that something was wrong. She had to get off and go to the stationmaster. He knew her family and sent her back."
As the attacks on Jews in Syria worsened, the grandparents eventually brought their mother to Lebanon. She was only 14 years old at the time. A Christian family agreed to smuggle her over the mountains into what is now Israel. “It was winter and very cold. They dressed her in several coats, one on top of the other. One night, men came and asked if they were Jewish. The Christians denied it and introduced my mother as their daughter. ‘If you were Jewish, we would have slit your throats,’ the men said, and then left the group alone,” Shoshana continued.
That's how her mother eventually came to Haifa, with the help of Christians. She then met her husband at a summer camp. "My father was born in Lublin, Poland. There were ten of them. My grandfather was a Zionist. He sent his sons to Israel as soon as they reached military age. He didn't want his children to join the army in Poland. So, in 1930, my father came to the country with his younger brother, a sister, and his mother. My grandfather followed later. His brothers who stayed in Poland were all murdered in the Holocaust."
Shoshana shows us a photo album about the family. The grandchildren had to create it for school. “They asked their grandfather about his story for it. But he always sent them to me. Once, he saw a film and cried terribly. I asked him if the film reminded him of anything. He couldn't speak, he just nodded. There were five brothers; he was the youngest, born in 1938. When he was two years old, Hungarian fascists broke into his family's apartment one Friday evening. They murdered his father in front of everyone. That was in 1940, before the Germans occupied Hungary.”.
His mother was Christian and later converted to Judaism. The boys were all circumcised and raised Jewish. Now his mother had to provide for the children alone. Many Hungarians collaborated with the Germans in the persecution of the Jews, Shoshana explains. Two of her husband's brothers were deported from a boarding school to Auschwitz at the ages of twelve and fifteen. A seventeen-year-old brother was arrested on suspicion of espionage. "He survived in prison. But they tortured him severely. He became mentally ill and had to be hospitalized repeatedly."
Asher's mother spent a long time searching for her abducted sons from the boarding school, often leaving Asher alone. "He had a friend who was a little older than him. He wasn't Jewish and looked after Asher a bit. He brought him lentils now and then. To this day, Asher can no longer eat lentils. Eventually, he was caught and taken to a concentration camp; he was six years old then."
An unexpected reunion
After the war, Asher came to Israel with a youth movement. “Young Zionists had searched for orphans after the Holocaust to bring to Israel. He then lived in a kibbutz with eight other children who had survived. One day, his brother Jacky suddenly appeared at the kibbutz with soccer cleats and chocolate. After the war, there were many services that helped people find relatives. Asher was on the list of the ship he had come on. That's how his older brother found him.”.
In 1949, they also tracked down his mother. She came to Israel from Hungary as a tourist in 1968. We waited for her at Ben Gurion Airport. Asher was already 30 years old, and when they held each other in their arms, he couldn't say anything; he had forgotten his native language. She was such a kind woman. She combed his hair like a small child—he was just a little boy when she had last seen him,” Shoshana continued.
Initially, the mother still lived in the kibbutz. "When the Yom Kippur War broke out and she had to go to a bomb shelter for the first time during an air raid, all the horrors of the war came flooding back. It was terrible. She then tried to kill herself with pills. Asher was at war, and I found her. She survived. We took her to a retirement home. She lived to be 85 there."
To life!
Asher and Shoshana have four children. “Our grandchildren later visited the Auschwitz memorial. There they found the names of Asher’s brothers from the boarding school: Felix Blaustein, 1932, and Oliver Blaustein, 1934.” At some point during the conversation, Asher also sat down with us. When Shoshana finished speaking, we all started to cry and hugged each other tightly. Then Asher got up and fetched a bottle of limoncello: lemon liqueur he had made himself. “Let’s toast. To life – Le chaim!”
This article first appeared in our newspaper "Israelaktuell," issue 141. You can order the newspaper here . We would also be happy to send you several copies for distribution.
