My grandparents Rumia and Sa’adia Hajbi immigrated to Israel from Yemen in 1949 with their 3.5-year-old son Shalom Hajbi and immediately came to a tent in Rosh HaAyin.

Upon their arrival, their son had diarrhea and my grandmother was advised to go to the nearest hospital in Rosh HaAyin. She brought him to the hospital and was asked to leave him there. When she came to pick him up the next morning she was told that he had died and that she was not allowed to enter.

She did not believe them and asked to see his body. Still they did not let her enter the hospital, violently blocking her way. She tried to break a door that had a glass window on it and cut her hand.

Not long before this horror occurred, a similar story happened to my grandfather's brother. They say that his wife lost her mind and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. To ensure the same thing would not happen to my grandmother, my grandfather made sure to keep her away from the hospital and took her immediately to Beit Dagan.

Years later she would still go to hospitals looking for Shalom. My grandmother believed with all her heart that her son had not died from a day of diarrhea and knew with absolute certainty that she was lied to. All her life she told her story, making sure to show the scar on her hand as evidence of what had happened.

Noga Bushari