PM Netanyahu Visits Home for Elderly Holocaust Survivors

(Communicated by the Prime Minister’s Media Adviser)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accompanied by Minister Yossi Peled,
Deputy Minister Leah Nass and Deputy Minister Yaakov Litzman, this morning
(Tuesday), 17.4.12, visited a Jerusalem home for the elderly, most of whose
residents are Holocaust survivors, in order to assess the attitude toward
its residents, as well as their care and living conditions.

Prime Minister Netanyahu joined the residents for breakfast, discussed the
kinds of treatment they receive and was briefed on activities at the home.
In July 2011, the Prime Minister paid a similar surprise visit to a
residence for elderly Holocaust survivors in Be’er Yaakov.
http://www.pmo.gov.il/PMOEng/Communication/EventsDiary/eventbeeryaakov060711.htm

During his visit, Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke with several residents:

He met with Eti Nadiv, a Holocaust survivor and one of the Mengele twins.
When she recognized the Prime Minister, she said, “Thank you very much for
coming to visit us.” She showed him the book she is currently reading, a
biography of Golda Meir, and said that she was moved, and was enjoying,
reading it because she herself remembers details mentioned in it. “This is
important, to read how it all began,” she said.

Idit Yapo, 104, moved from Germany to England to study music after she
realized that there was no future for Jews in Germany. She told Prime
Minister Netanyahu that she went to live in England in 1934 when Hitler
began to become stronger in Germany. In England, she received a degree in
art history. She told the Prime Minister that, “A Jewish woman in Germany
could not expect a profession or employment,” and added that she arrived in
Israel in 1951 and married a native Israeli she had met in Paris. The Prime
Minister wished her many more years of health and said, “It is possible to
say here today – the people of Israel live.”

Another resident, Linor Bernstein, showed Prime Minister Netanyahu her
family photo album.

Joseph Adler, another resident, told the Prime Minister about his memories
of meeting Adolf Eichmann in Vienna at the transport station and said that
he had heard him say a few words in Hebrew.

Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke with Elisheva Lehman, originally from the
Netherlands, who told him about the book she wrote about her childhood in
the Netherlands and her career as a music teacher in Israel. Moved by her
meeting with the Prime Minister, Elisheva took a seat at the piano and began
to play. She sang Am Yisrael Chai [“the People of Israel Live” long with
the other residents, the Prime Minister and the other ministers. She then
played Anashim Tovim B’Emtza Haderekh [“Good People Along the Way”] and said
that there were many good people in the State of Israel and good people who
had saved many Jews. She told Prime Minister Netanyahu that she had never
believed that she would be privileged to play for him and asked to sing
Hatikvah, Israel’s national anthem.

At the end of his visit, Prime Minister Netanyahu met with Hanoch
Mandelbaum, a survivor of Bergen-Belsen who helped build the table upon
which Israel’s Declaration of Independence was signed. He told the Prime
Minister about his work as a carpenter and about building the table. The
Prime Minister congratulated him on his historic part in building the
country.

On his way out, Prime Minister Netanyahu met sisters Hedy Steinberg and
Fanny Lutinger,. The former told him that as a former editor, she had
edited the encyclopedia written by his father. The Prime Minister told her,
“If you worked with my father, you must have been really good at what you
did; he knows how to appreciate good people in their work.”