Message from Jewish couple: Locate our family (archives)
Photo: AP
Message from Holocaust found on attic door
Man renovating his home in Dutch town of Bilthoven discovers text written on wooden panel by Jewish couple who hid in house in 1942; Yad Vashem records reveal couple was likely murdered in Auschwitz.
Jelle Kapitein, who lives in the Dutch town of Bilthoven, began renovating his house recently. During the renovation, one of the laborers dismantled a wooden panel of the door frame in the attic and spotted an old, unclear text.
The couple, Levie Sajet and Ester Zilberstein, wrote their personal details, dates of birth and address in the message in 1942, and asked that whoever found it would try to find their relatives after the war. They added a blessing for the person who would discover their message, saying: "The God of Israel, have mercy upon your humiliated brothers."
A restoration of the panel revealed the pencil-written request from a couple of Jews who had hid in the house during the Holocaust: Locate our family.
70 Years On
Caitlin Marceau
While repairing his neighbor’s leaky roof, handyman discovers photos, writings and a songbook believed to belong to a Slovakian Jewish family which perished during Holocaust.
Report on Dutch TV
The house's owner, who failed to find information about the couple's fate and whether they or their relatives survived the Holocaust, turned to a local television station and invited a crew to take pictures of the old door with the text left by the couple, hoping that their family members would hear about it.
"I would like to contact their relatives and relay the message to them," Kapitein said.
The list of Pages of Testimony on the Yad Vashem website contains names identical to the ones of the Jewish couple which hid in the Bilthoven attic. According to the Friends of Yad Vashem association in Holland, Levi Sajet and Ester Zilberstein were murdered by the Nazis in the Auschwitz death camp.
