Testimony by Sima, the mother.

It was in 1962, in Jerusalem.

I was at the beginning of my ninth month. I had a bit of bleeding and got scared, so I went to see the doctor. I went to Misgav Ladach hospital. I was planning on giving birth there in any case. I went there so that he could tell me what I should do.

The doctor received me. I wasn’t planning on giving birth; I had come to ask a question. I had at least another month to go, but they gave me a shot to induce the labour.

I was more or less 24-25 years old. I went into labor. This was my first birth. The labour went smoothly. Immediately afterwards the doctor took the child away. It happened at night. It was a very small hospital, and I was left alone in the room. Not even a nurse came by. I was alone.

A bread roll in the supermarket was harder to take than my baby after I gave birth. It wasn't until the next morning that a nurse came to clean me up and see how I was. I never saw the baby again.

After a while [the doctor] came back, saying that it took him time to find an incubator for the baby. I asked why an incubator was needed. He explained that there was something wrong with the abdomen lining, and that he had sent the baby to Hadassa Ein Karem hospital in an incubator.

A few days later, my husband made the journey to Hadassa. They showed him a baby with a very small bandage attached to his stomach. Everything was so strange. In those years we had so much faith in the doctors; it never occured to me that something could happen. My faith in the doctors was as great as could be, and the fact is that even afterwards, I kept going privately to the same female doctor whο worked at that same hospital. I mean, you have to understand the trust I had in doctors: heaven-sent angels.

My husband was told that the child had died. They didn’t even bother to tell me. They never said anything to me personally. I don’t even remember how… I don’t know…

I don’t know why I didn’t go to Hadassa, why I didn’t do something. My trust in them was so complete. I don’t know how to understand it. Today I wouldn’t behave like that. It was my first birth. I was healthy. everything was OK. I was very naive, stupid. I didn’t know a thing.

One evening I was sitting and watching TV when I saw three women talking, filmed from behind, telling the story of how they gave birth at the hospital, that the child had been taken away from them, and that there was no file or any documents. I said, “God, that’s my story! ” Only at that point did the whole thing awaken within me. They told a story about Tel Aviv, I told the same story about Jerusalem. Only then did I start to think about how I had been asleep all those years. They were saying the same words that were running inside my head.

We left the hospital without a single document, with nothing. When I arrived at the hospital there was a young girl there who received me and who wanted to open a file, but the doctor told her that there was no need. So there is no file, there’s nothing.

They were telling my story, exactly … the same words. And I thought to myself: How do they know my story? How do they know…?

And since then [the story] has given me no rest. I see that the same thing happened to so many people. We didn’t talk about it. We knew that this had happened in the immigrant camps, but in our home? I’d never heard about anyone like that. I didn’t think about it. I had so much faith in the doctors. blind faith. I never suspected anything. It was only when they spoke… That’s my story.