Ruth Haran, almost 88, was born in Bucharest, Romania, and spent the years of World War II fleeing from the Nazis. She and her family eventually escaped to Uzbekistan, where they survived until the end of the war.
But in 1945, her father died of typhus in Kishinev.
“And now the same thing has happened to [my son] Avshalom on the kibbutz,” Haran said with tears streaming down her face.
Haran agreed to be interviewed by JNS who sat at her bedside in Be’er Sheva, where she has been temporarily relocated. When the journalist arrived, she was lying in bed under a blanket.
Haran moved to Kibbutz Be’eri five years ago after her husband passed away to be near her son. That terrible morning, she was alone in her home when the rocket sirens went off. When the sirens continued blaring, she realized something was wrong and she tried calling her son but got no answer. Her daughter-in-law and grandchildren also didn’t answer.
At one point, there was a knock on the door and when she opened it, there were two Hamas terrorists standing there. But suddenly they were called away and they shut the door and left. Haran didn’t realize what a neis had just occurred because she was still unaware of the killing spree going on outside. She even tried leaving her home later in the afternoon but was quickly ordered back inside by two members of Israeli security forces, who told her to remain in her safe room.
It was already dark by the time IDF soldiers came to Haran’s home, which was also miraculously left untouched amid the destruction. They took her to a field where she met other survivors and only then did she hear about the horrors that occurred while she was barricaded inside her home.
“Everything came back to me,” she said. “The whole trauma [of my childhood] was reopened. It was exactly a Holocaust because only in a Holocaust are babies brutally murdered out of pleasure, women, pregnant women, killed or raped, homes burned.”
She later found out that her 66-year-old son was murdered and that seven members of her family – her daughter, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, aged 3 and 8, and 12, were abducted to Gaza.
“I can’t stop crying. This is a second Holocaust for me. They murdered my son. They took my family to Gaza. I’m [nearly] 88 years old,” she said as she burst into tears. “Enough.”
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One Response
cmon enough is enough it’s hard enough 4 her 2 have 2 go thru another holocaust cv after surviving the first one already can’t u clearly how hard this maybe must be 4 her right now having 2 maybe relive the horrors all over again a 2nd time around now do u want maybe see her cry all over again what’s the matter with u anyways