Sylvia Shertzer Aharon

A survivor's story - triumph and family
By Tamar Hausman

(May 2) - Jews throughout the world will pause to remember the Holocaust today. Here, in Israel, sirens will sound at 10 a.m. Traffic will come to a halt and people will stand for two minutes in silent tribute to the memory of the murdered six million Jews.

At last night's official opening of Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, the six survivors who lit the torches embodied this year's theme: "The Jewish Family and the Holocaust: The Struggle for Survival and the Search for Refuge and Rescue."

For Sylvia Shertzer Aharon, who survived the war with her sister, Etka, lighting the torch was a type of victory.

"I am going to be there with my children and grandchildren, despite the fact that [the Nazis] wanted to destroy us," Aharon said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post before last night's ceremony. "My being there is a sign that they were not able to."

Aharon, who made aliya in 1950 and lives in Rishon Lezion, lost most of her family in the Ivashkovtsy camp in Transnistria. She said her lighting of the torch was in memory of the Jews who perished there.

The youngest of three children, Aharon was born in Czernowitz, Bukovina, in Romania in 1936. Her mother died in 1941 of a pulmonary infection, unrelated to the Holocaust.

A year later, the rest of her family along with the other Jews of Czernowitz, were ghettoized and taken by train and then by foot to Transnistria.

Aharon's grandmother was unable to keep up en route to the concentration camp, and the family was forced to leave her behind as rifles of soldiers pushed them from behind. They endured cold, thirst, and hunger in the camp for a year. Only Aharon, her sister, and their cousin, Didi, survived. Her older brother and father died in the camp.

In 1944, Aharon and her sister were returned to Romania and spent time in a series of foster homes. In 1950, they came to Israel and were taken in by the Youth Aliya. Today, Aharon's sister, Etka, lives in Haifa.

Aharon has written a book about her experiences, called Between Stone and Hope.

In a video of her telling the story of her experiences and her survival, which was shown during last night's ceremony, Aharon's young voice is filled with grief as she recalls the deaths of her family members.

Aharon was accompanied by her 16-year-old granddaughter, Yael, in lighting one of the six torches, which represent each of the six million.

"The theme of this year is family, and it is very significant for me that I am able to do this with my granddaughter," she said.

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