Last week, an elderly Holocaust survivor was found dead in her apartment in Yerucham. Maria Schechtman was the sole survivor from her family and lived on her own for many years in Yerucham. Her neighbors noticed that they had not seen her in a few days and when the authorities, together with an ambulance crew, entered her apartment, they found Maria’s body. After doing some testing, it was found that she had died three days earlier.
One of the volunteers on the ambulance crew was Yair Ben Yishai, a 12th grade student at Yeshivat AMIT B’Levav Shalem. He told his classmates and teachers what he had witnessed and they were shocked. They decided to go to Maria’s funeral and give her the proper respect she deserved. Tzuriel Robbins, principal at Yeshivat AMIT B’Levav Shalem, spoke at the funeral and explained how important it is to look out for the elderly, and specifically holocaust survivors. The AMIT students understood exactly what he meant, as they just returned from a trip to the concentration camps in Poland last week.
The students donated NIS 3,500 of the money they had raised for their upcoming Purim party in order to purchase a tombstone for Maria. They will participate in the unveiling of the tombstone on the occasion of Maria’s shloshim (30 days after her passing). Alon Ben David, a student at the school, commented, “When we heard that there was no one who would fund the tombstone we decided to take it on ourselves. It was very important to us that after everything this woman had gone through in her life, she should at least be buried properly. I will never forget this story.”