My mother, Judith Levy, or Ida Magriso (her previous name), immigrated alone from Bulgaria to Israel through Syria and Lebanon in 1945. She arrived at Ayanot, an agricultural school where she joined a group of female agricultural workers, and there she met and married Shmuel (Samuel) Levy.

She gave birth to her firstborn girls on February 10, 1950 in the old birth center in Rehovot, on Binyamina street (before it became Kaplan Hospital). The building is still standing today. She had healthy twin girls: Osnat, who was the larger of the two, and Efrat who was the smaller. After 24 hours they told her the large, chubby and healthy girl, Osnat, had died. Mother would tell us that there was a rumour among the mothers in the birth center of a nurse who was a child trafficker. This nurse had a notorious reputation known throughout the region. Mom was not shown any papers: not a death certificate, not a burial permit, nothing.

Other names we remember: Dr. Lanzet, a well-known gynaecologist who treated mother before and after she gave birth; a midwife named Anushka who also came to Israel from Vidin, Bulgaria – not necessarily linked to Osnat’s disappearance, but since she worked there I am searching for her too, to try and get more information. Today she must be over ninety years old.

More of our siblings were born since then, my brother David was also born in the old maternity ward in 1952, and I was born in 1960 at Kaplan hospital, which opened just before then.

Until her last breath, mom, who died in February 2015, did not forget, and all her life she knew Osnat was alive.

Harel Levy