The theme of Holocaust Remembrance and Heroism Day this year, which begins on Monday evening, is "The Jewish Family in the Holocaust." In honor of the day, ynet brought together for family photos three survivors whose true victory over the Nazis is the great and glorious dynasties they established.
Yoske Hershkovitz, 99 / 'I was fortunate to build a legacy of future generations'
Yoske Hershkovitz and his father are the only members of their immediate family who survived the Holocaust. His mother and four siblings were murdered in Auschwitz. Yoske, prisoner number 4894 from Block 17 in the extermination camp, was born in Sighet, at the crossroads of Romania, Ukraine and Hungary. In March 1944, the Nazis took over the city.
He was sent to Auschwitz, barely survived, and weighed just 42 kilograms when the camp was liberated. In 1947, he immigrated to Israel.
“For 60 years I did not speak about what I went through in the Holocaust,” he says. “My greatest happiness is the family I built here with my wife, Yosefa (Zippi), of blessed memory, whom we all miss so much. We have three daughters: Bina, Gila and Eti, 10 grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren and one more on the way — truly like the 12 tribes of Israel. I was fortunate to build a legacy of future generations in the Jewish state I dreamed of reaching as a survivor of that cursed Auschwitz camp. I was lucky. I have just one request: take care of the country.”
Rina Czaczeks Axelbrad, 93 / 'My large family is my victory over darkness'
Rina Czaczeks Axelbrad, 93, of Tel Aviv, is a mother of seven, grandmother of 22 grandchildren — all of whom have served or are serving in the IDF — and great-grandmother of 11.
“I see my large family as my personal victory over the darkness and over the Nazis,” she says. Rina was born and raised in Poland. In July 1941, her father was murdered. She and her mother hid in various places and survived.
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Rina Czaczeks Axelbrad and her family in a garden established in memory of her husband's brother
(Photo: Ziv Koren/Polaris)
“After the war I immigrated to Israel and arrived at Kibbutz Dafna,” she recalls. “I served in the IDF, began working as a kindergarten teacher, and later married my Dushka, a Holocaust survivor and partisan who spent 12 years in prison in Siberia. Four years ago Dushka passed away, but I was left with a family that is a glory to the State of Israel, and for that I am very proud. On Holocaust Remembrance Day we all gather in a garden established in memory of Aharon Czaczeks, Dushka’s brother, who was murdered at age 13. Our ceremony is living testimony to the triumph of the Jewish spirit.”
Hannah Yachin, 93 / 'We built a family to be proud of'
Painter and author Hannah Yachin, 93, born in the Netherlands, is the Jewish daughter of Righteous Among the Nations Jan van Hulst. “When I was nine years old, one night my father woke me up and asked me to come help him. I saw on his table a photograph of a Jew pasted onto the identity card of a non-Jew. A small piece of the stamp was missing and needed to be carefully drawn in. He asked me to do it. It happened several more times after that,” she recounts.
She immigrated to Israel in 1965. A year later she met her husband, Avraham Yachin. “We married and lived in the Mahane Yehuda neighborhood, in the house where my husband grew up and where we also raised our children,” she says. “I still live in that same house to this day. We built a family to be proud of. We had eight children, and we have more grandchildren and great-grandchildren than I can count.”