Testimony by Yaffa Papo, sister:

My parents, bless their memory, Chaim and Yakut, immigrated to Israel from Morocco in 1956 and lived in Tirat HaCarmel. In August 1957 my sister Tziona became ill (she was born in Israel). She was six months old and was taken to Rambam Hospital in Haifa. A few days later, police officers arrived at my parents' home, not hospital representatives but uniformed police officers and they notified my parents that Tziona had passed away. The two police officers came on shabbat. In the death certificate it is listed the notifier was my father, that is Chaim Cohen[?]

The date of passing listed, 3/8/57, does fall on shabbat. My father was religious, I don't think he signed during the shabbat. In my opinion it does not even match my father’s signature since he used to make a line underscoring it. The Hebrew date does not match the year, it looks unclear. According to the Gregorian date mentioned in the death certificate the exact Hebrew date is 4th of Av, 5707 (Ha’Tashaz). In the certificate it says Ta’shaz? Ta’schaz? My parents were never handed any documents, not a death certificate nor a place of burial. My parents did not take part in the funeral and did not know where the grave was. Throughout the years my parents didn't talk much about the incident. It’s like they were in denial.

When my parents passed away, my brothers and I decided to look into the issue that bothered us for so many years and find out what happened to our sister Tziona and where she was. I managed to obtain a death certificate, a birth certificate, and a notification of death. In the report by Rambam Hospital it says the cause of death was fever and dehydration. At first i thought maybe Tziona was buried in Haifa, [but] afterwards, when we checked with Tirat HaCarmel cemetery we found a record that Tziona was buried there (The ID Number written there is scrambled), but we could not locate the grave. The cemetery director checked it himself, but Tziona’s grave was not found. I feel like I've hit a dead end. The documents lead nowhere. No grave. No clear information as to what happened to Tziona.