My grandmother (Bracha) is a Holocaust survivor. When she was only six years old (in 1940) in Rumania, the Rumanian authorities (who cooperated with the Germans) came to her house and took her and her parents to Russia, to a passageway station.

From this station Jews were sent to extermination and work camps. My grandmother says they were lucky because they succeeded to get out of this place with the help of a Rumanian Officer who found them a place to live with a Russian family. They were five people in a small room, and my grandmother's father used to go to work for earning money to give food for his family (they ate even potatoes' peels…) and to pay money to the family where they were hidden. My grandmother was ill many times because she had very little to eat. She was very weak and she almost did not survive.

In 1945 (when she was 11 years old) the Germans were defeated and the Russians came to free the Jews. My grandmother and her family returned to their house in Rumania and did not find anything from the property they had, and they had to start their lives from the beginning.

I am very proud of my grandmother!

Harel R