Testimony by Eli Buaron, Concerning Herzel, the Son of Julia Buaron

My parents and my older siblings immigrated to Israel in 1949 and like many others, they were sent to the Beit Lid immigrant camp. In 1950, their third son was born and named Herzel Buaron. When he was three months old he became ill and was transferred to the hospital that served Beit Lid. (I don’t know the hospital’s name). After my mother was assured that everything will be alright and that she should go back to her young children at the camp, she did so. Then, after two days, when she returned to the hospital, she was told that the baby had died and was properly buried.

I know that my mother was tortured for years because of what happened and never wanted to talk about it. Even when we asked her, “Have you seen the baby’s body?” she would change the topic. She never answered us and we only understood that it was a difficult issue for her. I was born in 1954. In 1959 I became ill and needed to be taken to the hospital. I was indeed hospitalized for more than two whole months at Tel HaShomer Hospital (formerly known as Litwinsky), in unit number 29 of the pediatric department. My mother, fearing that the same thing would happen to me, did not leave me for a single moment. Day and night for more than two whole months she sat and slept on a metal chair, despite the fact that I had two younger sisters at home in Netanya… and it’s probably because of the trauma of my missing brother.

My mother didn’t want to talk about this subject but after many years, during her old age, I dared to ask my aunt, my mother’s younger sister, the question that kept haunting me all these years: “Aunt, did mom see the body of my brother Herzel after she was told that he died?” She replied: “I’m not allowed to talk… but she hadn’t seen it…” and this causes me unrest for years now and I would like to get the true details about my brother … Which hospital he was in? And if he died, where was he buried and when? Can I get an answer at last? … I seek any piece of information that could lead me in the right direction. I consider this the honoring of my mother’s last will.

Eli Buaron