Merav Zamir visited Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum on Thursday, reports Yediot Acharonot, and decided to check on the status of the "testimony" page she had filled out for her grandmother, 78-year-old Chana Katz. In a spontaneous decision, she also asked the Yad Vashem staff if her grandmother had any relatives – though it was widely "known" in the family that she was her family's only survivor. They searched under the name of Sheindel Waiss, Chana's mother, and to their surprise, they found a match – another woman living in Israel who filled out a form saying that she was Sheindel's daughter. The names of the siblings and towns matched, and Merav realized that "we were on to something big. My head started spinning. I told my husband, Savta [Grandmother] has a sister!"
Merav said that she traveled straight to her grandmother's home: "I didn’t quite known how to tell her the news, so I decided to jokingly ask, 'What would you give me if I told you you had a sister?' She at first didn't understand, and then she started crying, "Where is she? Let's see her!"
When they called Clara, three years older than Chana, she at first didn't believe, and then wished to put off the meeting until Sunday. But Chana couldn't wait, and she had her granddaughter drive her to Rishon LeTzion to meet Clara on Thursday. Many other members of the extended family joined in for the next day's meeting,. "There's been a lot of crying and laughing, it's a tremendous feeling," Merav told Army Radio. "I recommend that everyone fill out these Yad Vashem forms; I would hope that everyone could have such a feeling as we have had these last few days."
The two sisters last saw each other in 1944 in the Budapest ghetto, where Clara remained after Chana was captured by the Germans. Clara made her way to what was to become Israel via Cyprus after living in a ghetto for a while, while Chana's arrival in Israel followed her detention in the Mauthausen concentration camp.
Once in Israel, Chana tried to follow up on rumors that her older sister had come to a kibbutz: "I turned to the Jewish Agency, and the Joint, and looked at all sorts of lists. When Yad Vashem was finally established, their lists were not organized. All my searches turned up nothing." Both sisters now have children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but they are making plans to spend the Passover Seder together in April.
"The way you call Mom, Mom, I call G-d, G-d," Chana told The New York Times. "But this just shows you that G-d doesn't close all the doors."
Some 3.3 million people have accessed Yad Vashem's database since it was launched last November. A spokesperson for Yad Vashem told Arutz-7 that there have been about 15 cases of long-long cousins or children of cousins finding each other via the database. "This is the first instance of such a dramatic case of actual sisters finding each other," she said.
Merav said that she traveled straight to her grandmother's home: "I didn’t quite known how to tell her the news, so I decided to jokingly ask, 'What would you give me if I told you you had a sister?' She at first didn't understand, and then she started crying, "Where is she? Let's see her!"
When they called Clara, three years older than Chana, she at first didn't believe, and then wished to put off the meeting until Sunday. But Chana couldn't wait, and she had her granddaughter drive her to Rishon LeTzion to meet Clara on Thursday. Many other members of the extended family joined in for the next day's meeting,. "There's been a lot of crying and laughing, it's a tremendous feeling," Merav told Army Radio. "I recommend that everyone fill out these Yad Vashem forms; I would hope that everyone could have such a feeling as we have had these last few days."
The two sisters last saw each other in 1944 in the Budapest ghetto, where Clara remained after Chana was captured by the Germans. Clara made her way to what was to become Israel via Cyprus after living in a ghetto for a while, while Chana's arrival in Israel followed her detention in the Mauthausen concentration camp.
Once in Israel, Chana tried to follow up on rumors that her older sister had come to a kibbutz: "I turned to the Jewish Agency, and the Joint, and looked at all sorts of lists. When Yad Vashem was finally established, their lists were not organized. All my searches turned up nothing." Both sisters now have children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but they are making plans to spend the Passover Seder together in April.
"The way you call Mom, Mom, I call G-d, G-d," Chana told The New York Times. "But this just shows you that G-d doesn't close all the doors."
Some 3.3 million people have accessed Yad Vashem's database since it was launched last November. A spokesperson for Yad Vashem told Arutz-7 that there have been about 15 cases of long-long cousins or children of cousins finding each other via the database. "This is the first instance of such a dramatic case of actual sisters finding each other," she said.