Jenia Levin — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

When I was school-age, I fell in love, dreamed, danced, argued with my mother – all was still ahead of me, when my grandmother Jenia Levine did everything she could just go wake up in the morning, trying to silence the horrors in order to have another sleepless night.

My grandmother is a Holocaust survivor.  This fact was always present in our home in Haifa, but was also not mentioned. Our large family in Vilna, or as it was nicknamed ‘Jerusalem of Lithuania’, was always present within the walls of our house.  What little I knew or felt about them came from a few photos which were salvaged by my grandmother’s elder sister who had managed to get to America before it was too late.

I was always looking for similarities between me and them; I looked for my grandmother as a little girl who loved dancing in a childhood picture of her and her brother.  I tried to imagine whether I would have survived as she had if I had been part of the family then.  With great courage and alone.

My grandmother was born on 19^th May 1920, in Vilna, Lithuania.  She lost her father in the Vilna Ghetto.  Her two brothers died there, too.  The elder one from starvation and the younger one was shot to death while trying to escape.  She saw her mother being sent to the left during an Aktion, while she and other healthy youngsters were sent to the right. To go on living.

She was sent to the Stutthof concentration camp and was one of the last to leave it on the Death March to the Baltic Sea, where they were put on ships and forced to jump into the water by dodging the bullets.  My grandmother says that she didn’t know how to swim but somehow managed to reach the shore.

It was in Gerlingen, Germany, after the war, that she met my dear grandfather, Moshe Levine, who had lost his wife and two daughters.  In 1949, after having married and given birth to my mother, my grandparents boarded a boat and landed in Haifa. Their second daughter was born in Israel and my grandparents were blessed with six grandchildren.

Grandpa was a well-known tailor, and this is what saved him during the war.  Together, my grandparents founded Levine Fashions – Women’s Clothing.  My grandmother sold the clothes, repaired clients’ clothes and always was, and still is, fashionably dressed.

Grandma was always practical. She found a way to survive and then build a home and family, and live. After my grandpa died, she again found her way back to life.  She is aware of what is going on, reads the newspaper every day, listens to world news programs, goes to the library to exchange books and immerses herself in thrillers.  At the moment, she is awaiting the birth of her tenth great- grandchild.

Grandma does everything to keep busy, so that she won’t have any free time for the dead to take advantage of it and start filling up the void.

My grandmother.  I love her.

Carmit Dror / Photography: Ryan. Yediot HaSharon, 25.4.2019.