Holocaust survivor, 87 years old Esther Zamri from Kibbutz Merhavya, has already participated twice in the March of Life in Poland. This year she received a third invitation to the March – and politely declined. Instead, she chose to remain here in Israel and tell 13 groups and hundreds of people the story of her survival and the murder of her family members. "We are only a few," she says, "someone needs to continue telling the story, so that people don't get up and say that there was no Holocaust – because there was a Holocaust."
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Over the years, Esther has told her story hundreds of times, but she says, "Every time I tell it, the story takes me back to my home, as a little girl, and I get a strange feeling every time. Whenever I start telling the story, I can see my house as if I was still sitting in it, and I see my mother lighting the Shabbat candles before my Dad gets back from the synagogue."
Only two survived
Her story is shocking: out of the five members of the Hazan family from the town of Ciechanowiec in Poland, only two survived – Arieh and Esther. Their father was exiled to Siberia, their older brother Gershon was shot in the forest, and their mother Tova was murdered with her brother Yitzhak by antisemites when they were trying to find a piece of bread. This is also the story of one Polish family, the Biali family, who did not remain apathetic and opened their home and hearts to save Jews. And most importantly – this is the story about Ester Zamri (Hazan), the youngest daughter in the Hazan family, who even today, at 87, continues to tell the story to "remember and not forget – and not to forgive," as she claims.
"Our house was quite beautiful and we were quite an affluent family," Esther remembers a time when her childhood still seemed normal. "The town was picturesque; a river ran through it and on Saturdays we would sail on it. I used to play in the streets with my friends."
We realized that we had to escape
Then the war broke out and a ghetto was set up in Ciechanowiec. Esther was only four years old, but she remembers how her life was turned upside down: "Every now and then we would get water, eggs, and bread, and our mother would save the food because we never knew if there would be food the next day. The Jews started discussing that we had to escape," she says. And so it was – Esther's mother fled the ghetto with three of her four children, while her eldest son Gershon joined a group of Partisans, but was murdered in the forest. "We walked 30 kilometers, and reached a nearby village, but they slammed the doors in our faces, house after house," she says. "We reached a small wooden house with animals outside. Mother begged the farmer to open up for us and he smiled and let us onto his porch. He didn't want any money. He risked his life for us."
After one night on the porch, the farmer, Kazimiaz Biali, moved Esther's family to a barn near his house. For this, he would later be awarded the title of "Righteous Among the Gentiles." We drank milk and ate eggs, and helped the farmer milk the cows. We could see through the slits in the barn walls and that is how we knew if it was day or night," recalls Esther. And this wasn't a temporary shelter – for two and a half years Esther's family hid in that barn. Young Esther had a specific role: "As a young girl, I didn't understand what was going on, but my older brother told me that I was always responsible for keeping the quiet. I would put my finger to my mouth and say 'quiet, quiet." This was our life – to be quiet."
Boots through the slits
And there were also moments of fear. "Once or twice Germans came to the house. We saw their black boots and guns through the slits," she says. The farmer who protected Esther and her family managed to convince the Germans that he was not hiding any Jews, and saved all their lives from certain death. After two and a half years of hiding, Kazimiaz began to fear for his life and the life of the Hazan family, because of antisemitic events in the town. He sent Tova and her two children to a nearby field, told them they would have to fend for themselves and left. "We ate potatoes from a nearby field and wet our lips with the stalks of grain," recalls Esther.
The Hazan family bravely survived in the field for several weeks, but their mother Tova decided to go back to the village to find some bread for her children. Her older brother, Yitzhak, joined her on her trip to the village.
"I should have told her not to go," says Esther. That night Tova and Yitzhak were murdered by an antisemitic family, while Esther and her brother Arieh heard everything. "Mother shouted, 'Have mercy on me, don't kill us, I have young children'. Then we heard two shots. That night I cried, very quietly, so that they wouldn't hear me."
The farmer also heard the news about Tova and Yitzhak's murder. Kazimiaz returned to the field and took Esther and Arieh to his home. They lived in the pigsty for a few weeks and then the farmer told the two of them: "The war is over."
Return to their village in Poland
Sometime later Esther and Arieh immigrated to Israel. Esther settled in Kibbutz Merhavya, where she lives to this day and Arieh in Kibbutz Gan Shmuel. Today Esther has four children, 11 grandchildren, and 3 great–grandchildren.
In 1987 she returned on a visit to the village where she hid; to the barn and the pigsty. The villagers directed her to the family who murdered her mother and brother. "We did not get my mother and brother back, but we are the children you also wanted to kill," she told the family. "We have not come to take revenge, we have not come to ask for anything. But we want you to know that we have continuity."
One of the questions that preoccupy Esther's mind is what she would do if someone knocked on her door and asked for shelter. "I think I would open the door and help them; maybe because of what I went through myself," she says.
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