Marcel Tammam's testimony:

I immigrated to Israel from Tunis in 1956. My husband, the late Victor Tammam, immigrated to Israel before me, in 1950.

We met in Havatselet HaSharon and got married. In January 1963 I gave birth to my first son at Hillel Yaffe Hospital, in Hadera.

I had a completely normal pregnancy, without any complications or problems. I arrived at the hospital with regular labor and gave birth in a normal delivery to a healthy baby. I heard him and saw him. They put him on my stomach. Then they took him to the neonatal department.

A few hours later, I asked “Where is my baby? Why don't you bring him to me, so I can nurse him?” One of the doctors asked and inquired where my baby was, and another doctor told him that the child was dead. My late mother-in-law was in the room with me at that moment. I heard it and lost consciousness. I was unable to regain my strength for three days and I remained in the hospital, with a broken heart and a chest still full of milk. Three days later, when I woke up, I heard two doctors talking to each other, one of them was called Dr. Mizrahi. I heard them talking about me and the baby, and as if coordinating between them to tell us that the child is dead. My mother-in-law asked them: “how does something like this happen? After all, the child was born healthy,” and they told her: “No big deal, it happens, your daughter-in-law is young and healthy and she will have more children.” We were all heartbroken.

We were not shown the baby's body, we were not given a burial place and we did not receive a death certificate, or any other document.

My husband, the late Victor, tried all these years to find information and also gave a DNA sample. He died about six months ago on the first night of Chanukkah.

I would like to point out that the same thing happened to my brother, the late Ephraim Pardi, in Havatselet HaSharon, between 1958-1960.

I was left with a hole in my heart all these years. Thank God I have since, given birth to 3 more girls and a boy, but during every pregnancy and birth, I was full of concerns and fears, that this would happen to me again. I was really scared.

It is something that cannot be cured. Pain that does not go away