Sarah’s voice carries the weight of memory as she shares her family’s Holocaust survival story with deliberate care, each recollection filtered through decades of experience. On the other end of their phone conversation, her grandson Captain N of the Israel Defense Forces’ 214th Artillery Brigade listens from his deployment along Israel’s northern frontier to a narrative he knows well, yet continues to discover anew.
Their dialogue bridges two generations separated by vastly different circumstances but united by shared history. For Sarah, the Holocaust remains a lived reality that shaped every aspect of her life’s trajectory. For her military officer grandson, it represents the cornerstone of the duty he now fulfills in uniform.
Sarah emphasizes that sharing her story is an obligation, not a choice. “It’s so very important that people should know,” she told The Media Line during their interview. “And not make the same mistakes over and over again.”
She identifies herself as “a true Nitzolah,” using the Hebrew term for survivor, though her survival came not from enduring concentration camps but from her family’s prescient decision to flee before the full horror unfolded.
Sarah was born in Belgium and had reached ten years old when World War II erupted. Her father, despite lacking formal schooling, possessed remarkable intuition about the gathering storm across Europe. “Whatever he knew, he taught himself,” she explains, repeatedly returning to describe his character. “He was very curious. Very thirsty for learning.” Though he never attended school, “Whatever he knew, he taught himself,” she emphasizes again.
Having emigrated from Poland, where Jewish life was perpetually precarious, her father understood hardship intimately. After moving westward, he methodically built his livelihood, first mastering diamond work and trading, then expanding into an entirely different field. “He also decided to learn chocolate making,” Sarah mentions almost casually.
Rather than following a predetermined plan, Sarah explains, her father adapted and learned whatever skills circumstances demanded. Most crucially, he possessed an ability to read the political climate while others remained uncertain about their future.
He monitored developments in Germany closely and grasped their potential implications. When he reached his decision, it came decisively rather than gradually – they would not remain to witness what might unfold.
When he informed the family of their departure, he framed it as a simple visit. “We’re going to England,” Sarah remembers him announcing, ostensibly to see their daughter.
Only later did his true intentions become apparent – he had no plans to return. England itself was merely a waystation. “When the time comes, we’ll go on to Palestine,” she recalls him declaring.
For young Sarah, the transition felt entirely different. As a child, she couldn’t comprehend the larger forces reshaping their world. Her initial memories of Sussex center on sensory details rather than ideology. “The smell of kippers … it was a terrible smell,” she says, referring to the smoked fish common in Britain then. She also recalls encountering elderly people living in conditions that made a lasting impression, though she couldn’t fully understand why at the time.
Despite the upheaval, Sarah felt cared for during their stay. “They spoiled me,” she remembers. Local people gave her small tasks like shoe polishing and compensated her for the work. “This was earned money,” she adds, still expressing pride in those early wages.
Their time in that location proved brief. The atmosphere shifted as suspicion grew toward foreign refugees, including European Jews. “There was a fear that they might be spies,” Sarah explains. Her family, like others, had to adapt once more.
By the time she discusses London, the war was fully underway. “I was just ten,” she repeats multiple times, emphasizing her youth during these traumatic events.
She vividly recalls the night a bomb struck their neighbors’ air raid shelter, separated from their own home by only a fence. The neighboring family was Jewish with children near her age. “They didn’t survive it at all,” she states simply.
Another incident remains particularly vivid in her memory. Following a nearby explosion, authorities ordered everyone to evacuate their shelter immediately. “They said, ignore it … just run for your lives,” she remembers. Officials feared another unexploded bomb remained in the vicinity.
When they emerged, broken glass covered the street completely. “There were splinters everywhere,” Sarah describes. She had no shoes and initially ran barefoot across the debris. Her father soon realized what she was stepping on. “He lifted me on his shoulders,” she recalls.
What amazed her most was what happened afterward. Upon reaching safety, “not a glass splinter stayed on the sole of my foot,” she says, still sounding astonished. Her father’s shoes were similarly unscathed. “We called it miraculous,” she reflects.
The war’s end didn’t conclude their family’s relocations. They moved from London to Manchester, believing it offered greater safety. The Jewish community there welcomed them as refugees with warmth and attention, though uncertainty never completely disappeared.
Family members who remained in Poland perished in the Holocaust. Sarah’s future husband Itzhak, whom she would meet in Israel, survived the Holocaust directly in Europe. For years, he couldn’t discuss his experiences. “It was too terrible to talk about,” she remembers. When trauma did surface, it wasn’t through conversation. “He used to scream in the night,” she says.
Despite these painful memories, Sarah doesn’t characterize their later life in terms of suffering. “We managed to keep it a very happy house,” she explains. “A house where there was a lot of singing and dancing and jokes.” She mentions the jokes again, noting her husband loved telling them, even though “he was not all that good at it.”
When discussing their eventual life in Israel, Sarah struggles to find adequate words. “I don’t think I can express it,” she begins, then attempts again. “It’s indescribable, really … that feeling, I find it indescribable.”
“It’s really like it says in one of the psalms,” she adds. “From the depths of sorrow to the heights of freedom.”
Though her grandson never witnessed this transformation personally, he inherited its significance. Speaking from his current position in northern Israel, he acknowledges that hearing the story affects him differently each time. “Listening to this story every time is very emotional,” he explains. Despite growing up with these accounts, full comprehension came gradually. “Just around 16, I realized the full story,” he says, referring to both grandparents’ experiences.
Unfortunately, his grandfather had already passed away by then. “Sadly, I couldn’t ask him the questions I have,” he adds with regret.
When describing what most impressed him about his grandfather, Captain N focuses not on the traumatic events themselves but on something else entirely. “He never let those events define him,” he observes. He characterizes both grandparents as profoundly optimistic, a trait that became integral to their family’s identity.
This inheritance shapes his own sense of military duty. “We can’t let those things go back in time and happen to the Jewish community again,” he declares. For him, IDF service addresses not only current threats but prevents the return of a past that remains very immediate in his family’s experience.
He views Israel not merely as a state but as a remarkable transformation – a small people becoming an independent nation with a powerful military in less than a century. For him, this represents “something beautiful,” the product of values forged during the darkest chapters of Jewish history.
When asked about Israeli identity, he responds in terms of historical continuity – living the Zionist dream, building a homeland, serving the community, and reconnecting a people after 2,000 years of diaspora. His military service, he believes, contributes to this mission.
Sarah agrees with her grandson’s perspective but adds another dimension. She acknowledges that she has changed since October 7th. The attack deeply unsettled her, revealing vulnerabilities she hadn’t fully anticipated.
However, her conclusion doesn’t involve questioning Israel’s necessity but rather the opposite. “Now I feel that I need Israel even more, more than ever,” she declares. She speaks of community, protection, and everything the state provides that cannot be taken for granted.
The physical distance between them – she speaking from a home built after the war, he from a military position on an active border – doesn’t separate their perspectives but rather connects them.
Sarah’s early life unfolded in a Europe where Jewish survival depended on correctly reading danger signals and departing in time. Her grandson’s life takes place in a state where Jews bear responsibility for their own defense. The transition between these realities isn’t theoretical – this family lives it across generations.
Their conversation never becomes a political statement but remains rooted in lived experience. A father who understood history. A child who sensed fear without fully grasping it. A family that relocated, survived, and rebuilt. A husband who carried trauma into a life that still made space for happiness. And a grandson who now stands in uniform on a border his great-grandparents could never have envisioned.
Sarah repeatedly states that some experiences cannot be expressed in words, that they are felt “here in the heart.” Yet throughout their conversation, something becomes evident.
For her family, survival didn’t end with staying alive. It continued through the decision to build, raise children, create a home, and transmit not only memory but a sense of responsibility.
On Israel’s northern border, that responsibility has taken a new form. It no longer involves escape but defense. This distinction, Sarah emphasizes, makes all the difference.
