My parents, Meir and Camilla (following Hebraization attempts, mother’s name sometimes appears as Carmela), emigrated from Tangier in 1950. They came to Israel with their first born baby son of eight months. He became ill with diarrhoea when they were in a transit camp in Yokne’am. They were referred to the hospital. My mother had already heard that there are kidnappings and she worried and kept very close watch over him. When they told her to leave him and go, she refused and insisted and said she will not leave the child under no conditions. She signed a waiver of hospitalization or a similar document, which they used to threaten her, but would not leave him there.

My sister and I were born in Rambam Hospital in Haifa. The fourth child was probably born in 1964. Mother recalled that she was told that there were a lot of wounded soldiers who kept the doctors busy, and therefore there was supposedly no one who could attend to her. This is why her baby choked, because the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck.

Mother saw the baby. She heard him cry and remembered him well - a big boy, red-haired and light-skinned. How could he have died?

Mother would repeat this story again and again.

Sarah Truzman