At the beginning of WWII, Dr. Siperstein’s family: Zaharia (deceased
1980),
his wife Amalia (deceased 1996) and their daughter Susanne lived
in
Bucharest, Rumania. Zaharia’s family who lived in Tchernowitz
thought
that it would be better for all of them to stay together during
these difficult
times so Dr. Siperstein took his family and went to his relatives.
The town of Tchernowitz is on the frontier between Poland, Ukraine and
Rumania and it changed hands so that when the Rumanians and the
Germans entered the town, the Sipersteins were sent to Transnistria,
Cariera de Piatra.
Because of his profession, Dr .Siperstein was sent from one
concentration camp
to the other over the river Bug in Ukraine among these Ivangorod,
Michailovka,
Oradovka and on their way back from the camps they passed
Petchiora and the
ghetto of Tulchin. These wanderings helped them in a way to save
their lives.
In the ghetto of Tulchin a group of orphans was organized to be sent to
Palestine.
Susanne joined the group but on the way to the port of Constanza, a
friend of the
family kidnapped her from the train in order to send her to her
relatives. This
saved her life because the ship going to Palestine was sunk.
Susanne was sick and stayed with the person who kidnapped her in Iasi,
Rumania
till a lawyer, paid by the relatives, fetched her and brought her
to Tchernowitz
where she found her father and after a while her mother came from
the Ukraine.
In 1945 they traveled to Bucharest. In 1950 Susanne’s brother Dan
Ben–Zion
was born. He was called after his mother’s father who was killed
together with
his wife Chaia in Riga. The family was allowed to go to Israel only in
1958.
Susanne studied English Literature and Linguistics in Jerusalem
where she met
Haim Raweh (+ 1997) they married and they had two children, Dafna
and Yoav.
After she had the second child, Dafna asked granny Susanne to
write her story
for her children so that it should not be lost.
Granny Susanne wrote it in verse in a language at the level of children
to
understand and Dafna illustrated it with love.
That was how this book was born.