The testimony of the Sister Tziona

I (Tziona) was born in 1949, my sister Mazal was born in 1951 and my sister Drora was born in 1959. We are five siblings, not including Drora. Drora was the youngest. We are all older than her.

We had a beautiful baby sister. When she was six months old, she was not feeling well and we called for the neighborhood's doctor to come over. He said she has fever, and that it was probably strep throat. We gave her antibiotics and it did not help. Since the fever was not coming down, the doctor ordered us to send her to the hospital. I (Tziona) took her to the hospital. I was ten years old. The nurse told me that I am just a little girl and that I cannot stay with her. They would not let me stay with her. They did not allow it. I told them my father was working and my mother had to stay with my younger siblings. They told me it is prohibited for me to stay there. I left her there around midday, before noon. In the afternoon a messenger came and notified us that she passed away. On the same day. I demanded documents but they refused to give it to me because I was a child.

A month later I went there again, and demanded to see documents showing that she passed away. I told them again and again that I do not believe them. They told me that there are no documents. I asked about a grave, they said they did not know anything.

I have been blaming myself ever since. How could I leave her there. If I ever see her I will recognize her, I know that. Her image, I will not forget it. The smile, the eyes.

My father said we should leave it be, and my mother, she was so shy, she did not talk about her for years. In her last days she started asking again and again, where is she? Where did they take her baby?

In the Ministry of Interior there is no evidence, nothing, not a death certificate, nor a grave. We used to have a birth certificate but it is gone now. We have a Histadrut (union) member card where she is mentioned in handwriting. And my father’s Kupat Holim (health service) card. And that’s it. Nothing else.

I blame myself. How I did not take her. How I trusted others. It would never happen again. I learned a lesson for life: never leave children alone in a hospital, nor parents, nobody! I have no trust!