It was my mother’s fourth delivery at Bikur Cholim Hospital in Jerusalem. (Before that my mother had three babies in this hospital).

Approximate time of delivery: End of 1961 (the last quarter of the year).

Memory as a child: My father telling us that our brother will be named Eli. A few days later my father told us that Eli passed away.

My mother breastfed the baby for several days and he was healthy until my parents were told that he passed away. My parents didn't receive the body and there was no burial.

Until the Uzi Meshulam protests in the beginning of the 1990s, I was sure that I had a brother who was born in the hospital and passed away there a few days after his birth. Only during the Uzi Meshulam protests I began to have doubts, and wonder if my brother too, was, actually, kidnapped.

I asked my father, who was surprised by the fact that I raised this issue, and he asked: “How do you know?” He didn't want to talk about it. He demanded that I wouldn't involve my mother in this, as he cared for her well-being and was concerned that she would take it hard. Twice more, I tried to elicit details from my father but he refused, and was really angry and upset the last time I asked him. I never raised the issue again until he passed away in 2002.

Information I got from my mother – (Like my father, my mother never initiated talking about it in my presence, except when I asked her): Eli was a healthy baby and she breastfed him for a few days at the usual breastfeeding hours. During these days (and probably before the date of circumcision) there was a nurse who asked her (my mother told me this angrily): “Girl, how many children do you have? Are they healthy?” What bothered my mother was that that nurse asked her these questions more than once and responded by saying: “Good, good.”

I don’t know if my mother’s childbirth was registered (she already gave birth three times at this hospital), if a birth certificate was issued or, later, a death certificate. No burial was held.

My mother repeatedly emphasized, every time we talked, that the baby was healthy and he couldn't have died. But when I asked her if he was kidnapped, she replied: “Who knows?” and then went silent.

This testimony was written by Herzl Baruch (aged 64 years)

September 16th, 2016