My mother gave birth to a beautiful girl named Ruth in 1959-60. We lived then in Kiryat Ekron. The nurses would always be telling my mother “what a pretty girl maybe you can sell her to us.” My mother did not think they said this seriously and would never have sold her child.

When Ruth was six months old, they told my mother her child was sick and she was hospitalized at Kaplan Hospital. My mother was told to go home and come back the next day to pick her up.

When she came the next day came they told her her daughter had died. They brought her a wrapped bundle from the hospital, and were accompanied by a representative from the hospital who made sure that the bundle would not be opened. They buried her and sat shiva.

My mother died with the feeling that her daughter was still alive.