Michael and Kochava Zori

My parents Michael and Kochava Zori natives of Sax village, Persia, immigrated from Iraq in the 50’s and were settled in the transit camp in Hedera.

They had a child (their first child) and named her Malka. When she was two and a half or so whilst she was asleep in the transit camp my mother went to draw water from the well. When she returned home she found the bottle of oil that was in our home lying on the floor. My mother was afraid that maybe the girl drank the oil and immediately took the child to the GP clinic in Hedera.

In the clinic they performed a gastric lavage just in case, and recommended that my parents take the child to the Rambam Hospital for observation. I should point out that the girl did not lose consciousness and was even in a happy and normal mood.

My parents went to Rambam Hospital, and there they also performed a gastric lavage just in case. When evening came and it began to get dark my parent were asked to leave the hospital and return in the morning in no uncertain terms, probably by as nurse. According to her, it was forbidden for parents to stay in hospital during the night. My parents could not read and write and barely knew Hebrew, were very naive and believed it was forbidden to stay in the hospital at night and drove home to the transit camp in Hedera.

I want to emphasize: the girl was conscious the whole time, when my parents left the hospital the girl waved at them through the glass and that was the last image my parents remembered of her.

In the early morning, my parents came to the Rambam Hospital where they were told that their child died in the night and was buried in the cemetery in Haifa, Ramat David. My parents believed it and thought that this must be the custom in the holy land of Israel and turned to sit shiva for the child.).

After that my parents had another six children - three boys and three girls me being the youngest. In 1995, after years of no one talking of it in our home because my father forbade my mother to talk about it so as for her not to feel more regret and sorrow (Needless to say, my mother went through many tortures of conscious over the years because she believed it was her fault), I asked my parents to tell us the whole story. When I heard that the girl did not lose consciousness and they were forced to leave the hospital, I knew that my sister is alive and that she did not die when she was a child, my parents were quite naïve and were especially susceptible to lies and to steal their baby girl, which according to descriptions was very beautiful. We do not have a picture of her as my late father tore up the picture after a year since my mother would hold the picture all the time and cry. My father even called my sister Malka after the lost girl so that my mother will start to live again and believe the girl dead and that life must go on. (These evil people have done great wrong to my parents).

I tried to investigate and went to look for the grave, I was amazed at the quantity of graves there - hundreds of graves. The death certificate we received from Rambam Hospital (attached) has no doctor signature and when I asked for the report and what the doctor wrote, I was told there is no record of it. When there was a committee of inquiry I arrived with my parents (they are no longer alive, unfortunately), I was amazed that the investigation committee actually went on at my parents in a horrible way for leaving the child alone at night in the hospital. I immediately intervened and tried to explain to the judge (I believe he was blackmailed!!!) that they were forced to leave the hospital and that they should investigate why they were forced to leave and that's exactly the point, and he insisted: Your parents probably were not good enough and abandoned the child. So the committee of inquiry was the biggest job they did on all of us and if they publish the conclusions I do not believe it will give us any revelation.

I must add that at some point in the 90s I went to archive of the agency and I was amazed to see that lots of children were adopted abroad and especially to the US.

My lost sister should be about 64 years old today (the date of birth in the death certificate is not clear to us since we know she was two and a half or so when she was kidnapped and in the death certificate it says she was two years and month old). She was fair-skinned with satin/blonde hair and light green/brown eyes.

Avner Zori

When my parents left the hospital their daughter waved at them through the window and that was the last image of her my parents remembered. We do not have a photo of her. The only photo we had my late father had torn up after year, because my mother would hold the picture all day long and cry.







I was amazed that the investigation committee actually berated my parents for leaving the child alone at night in the hospital. I immediately intervened and tried to explain to the judge that they were forced to leave the hospital and that he should investigate why they were forced to leave—that that was exactly the point. He insisted: "your parents were probably not good enough and abandoned the child."