The story of Gizela - Afik Shiraz. Abinun Shmuel

even volunteer to drive us to the ceremony, some 600 km from his home, and back to his home, having us as guests for a week, wandering around and soaking up the views and the gorgeous blooms. This was a strange experience for me to visit Germany under these circumstances and more by staying in a German home that gave us such a warm and welcoming attitude. But the crunch in my throat did not leave me for a moment. I felt bad about myself breaking the vow after all those years, and found myself reliving things I've been pushing most of my life. It was actually the first time in Samuel's life to hear my Holocaust story - the first time I agreed to talk and maybe the first time which he was ripe to hear. On the morning of the ceremony we went to Treobitz. We visited the memorial room at the local school with the map of the lost train route, various pictures, books and accessories for the Holocaust. From there we drove to the Jewish cemetery where the Jews who perished there were buried. There is a large, long wall-like black marble monument with all the casualties names of the lost train are engraved in marble. To this day, I'm having trouble to express in words the emotions that passed through me at the moment I my father’s name on the headstone. In addition to the prisoners who perished on the lost train, are buried in Treobitz eighteen local guys who saw our poor condition and wanted to help us and became infected by Typhus, fell ill and died. This is an opportunity for me to note their generosity and kindness of their hearts that had cost them their lives. The ceremony in Shipkao was exciting. I talked there with survivors and their families who came from Israel. Some had visited Bergen-Belsen before the ceremony; however, I did not want to join them in any way. I knew the Yugoslavians among the participants from the camp and the train; with most of them I have kept in touch over the years, including the journalist Raoul Taitelbaum who was among the organizers of the trip. With a few of them it was the first meeting since our days in Beer Yaakov. Except for Yugoslavian immigrants there were also from the Netherlands and France. Like me, everyone was very excited, reliving our past and crying for our loved ones who perished. Local high school students, Mayor and Minister of Culture, attended the ceremony. Samuel, my son, read a short speech he wrote about the importance of education for tolerance, acceptance of the other and mutual assistance preventing another holocaust. Then we said Kaddish (a pray said before burying the dead person) and I lit a memorial candle in memory of my father and the other victims. Zvi Kochav continues to this day in the study of the lost train. He advertises information about it in museums around the world, sends and receives material and manages a correspondence. He has a great deal of work around the subject and he often sends Samuel the materials in the different languages, and we save them for their historical and emotional value. About a half a year ago, he retired from work at "Teva" and now that's his only project. He works while collaborating with other people to preserve the monument he

46