My parents, Sarah Kagan Darvin and Zalman Darvin, peace be upon them, immigrated in 1947. They were holocaust survivors from Poland and Latvia. They arrived from Nicosia, Cyprus, after being captured trying to immigrate illegally. They arrived and settled in Kibbutz Ma’aleh Hachamisha for a few months, then moved to Kfar Malal and moved into a packaging warehouse that became their home. From there they moved to Kfar Saba. My parents had a firstborn child who was born in the displaced persons camp in Cyprus. He was four years old when the twins were born.

In 1951, my parents had twins, a boy and a girl who were born premature at the maternity hospital in Kfar Saba. They remained in the hospital and my mother would come to nurse them every day. Not long before the date of their discharge, my parents came and were told [the twins] had died.

My brother, Shimon Darvin, can testify that he saw them in my mother’s arms. Unfortunately, my parents have already passed away. The daughter had a name but the son was not yet circumcised and they planned to give him a name in the Bris (circumcision ceremony). They never saw a body or a burial place. My parents were naive and could not believe that here, in the Homeland, the Holy Land, someone will deceive them after the Holocaust.

We received military draft orders [for the twins] many years later.

Rivka Darvin Sinai