My parents, Jeanette (Camera) George and (Simon) Allouche, came to Israel from Lyon, France, with two daughters, one two and a half years old and the second, Simone, 6 months old (born July 19, 1948). We are originally from Algeria, my father served in the French army and was captured by the Germans and held in captivity for five years, my mother was on the Butcher of Lyon’s list, and her brother was murdered at Mauthausen concentration camp, where the whole family was meant to go. They immigrated to Israel in 1948 after my father got remarks for being a Juif, a dirty Jew, in the streets of Lyon. Upon arriving in Israel they were sent to Pardes Hanna immigrant camp, where my sister disappeared. The story goes like many others, she was supposedly ill, died and was buried, no grave exists and they won’t show us where she was buried. They said to my mother, who was 25 at the time, "why are you angry? You’re still young and you’ll have more children." My parents received two death certificates, one for a daughter named Simone, cause of death diarrhea and one for a son named Simon who died of pneumonia. The certificates are of course for different dates.

As a consequence, my parents fled the camp and went to live in an abandoned house in Ramle where I too was born, two years later. I might have suffered a similar fate if it wasn’t for my father, who took my mother and sister, left the immigrant camp and moved to an abandoned house in Ramle after the disaster, my mother gave birth to me at home and that’s probably how I was saved, because at that time there was, quite simply, child trafficking going on in Israel.

At Uzi Meshulam’s I saw a paper from Rambam Hospital documenting my sister’s hospitalization six months after she was pronounced dead. I have no documents in my possession since my parents are sadly no longer with us, and their inheritance wasn’t properly preserved in our family. But I saw these documents with my very eyes and sent two queries about her to two different committees and the answer I received was that they had no information regarding her circumstances.

My missing sister, you are about 68 years old today, in the picture before you are your four sisters, we are truly amiable, loving and greet you with open arms, and our mother who is saldly no longer among us, but her will is engraved in my heart, to find you. Can’t you find resemblance to any of us? To our mother?

Esther Gand