Avigdor Neumann was born in 1931 to Menachem-Mendel and Bejle, the fourth of seven children in a Hasidic (Satmar) family. The family lived in the town of Sevlus, Czechoslovakia (today Vynohradiv, Ukraine), and Menachem-Mendel was a trader and philanthropist. Avigdor attended the local state school and went to heder. In 1939, the town came under Hungarian rule, and its name was changed to Nagyszollos. Menachem-Mendel helped save Jews without citizenship from expulsion to Poland by assisting in the forging of Hungarian citizenship papers.

In March 1944, the Germans invaded Hungary, and policemen evicted the Neumanns from their home on Passover. Menachem-Mendel was arrested, interrogated and tortured. Bejle and the children were moved into the ghetto and were reunited with a shaven, injured Menachem-Mendel a few weeks later. The family was told to prepare for a journey, and Avigdor was responsible for the food supplies, but, in a panic, he left them behind when a policeman attacked his mother. For years afterward, Avigdor felt guilty that the family didn't have enough food on the train due to his actions. The family was loaded onto a cattle car with some eighty other Jews; air only entered the car through a narrow slit. Upon arrival at Birkenau, one of the Jewish prisoners separated Avigdor from his mother and moved him to the men's line. Avigdor tried to resist, and the prisoner retorted: "One more word and it'll be the end of you."

Avigdor told Mengele that he was a fifteen-year-old mechanic and passed the selection. The next day, he was informed that his mother, sisters, and brothers had been murdered. His father and one surviving brother died later on in other camps. Avigdor was put to work and was starved and subjected to violence. "From the moment they tattooed me with a number, I no longer had a name," he relates. He was assigned to garbage collection and tried to assuage his hunger by eating scraps of refuse. He soon discovered that his eldest sister was alive and saw her over the fence, where he shouted to her one day: "I'm thirteen years old today! It's my Bar Mitzvah!" Sinai Adler and other Jews risked their lives to obtain tefillin (phylacteries) for him.

Avigdor was selected for death on more than one occasion; once Mengele pulled him out of the group, and another time, the selected Jews were on the threshold of the gas chamber when they were sent back to their blocks. On January 18, 1945, Avigdor was forced on a death march. He reached Mauthausen and then the Gunskirchen camp, where he was liberated by the US army. Avigdor returned home and reunited with his elder sister. They reached Budapest, where he joined the Bnei Akiva youth movement. The siblings boarded the Ma'apilim (illegal immigrant) ship Theodore Herzl. The British intercepted the ship and imprisoned the passengers in a detention camp in Cyprus; from there they eventually arrived in Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine). Avigdor fought in all of Israel's wars until the Yom Kippur War, when he was wounded.

Avigdor started to tell his Holocaust story in the early 1990s, seeing it as a sacred calling. Today, he participates in a project that brings together Holocaust survivors and survivors of the October 7, 2023, massacre. He listens to them, tells them about his experiences, and encourages them to rebuild their lives.

Avigdor and Rivka have a son and a daughter, seven grandchildren, forty-five great-grandchildren, and a great great-grandchild.

Ilana-Lina Fallach was born in 1937 in Benghazi, Libya, to a traditional Jewish family, the fourth of five children. Her father Shimon Saadon was a tailor, and her mother Masouda sewed jalabiyas. The extended family lived on good terms with their Muslim neighbors, and Ilana's grandmother was even a wet-nurse for an Arab mother who lived next door.

In late 1940, the British bombed Benghazi, and the Fallachs hid together with many other Jews in a shelter beneath the city's central square. Many family members were killed in the bombardment.

The Italian regime started arresting people with British citizenship, and Ilana's father, who was a British citizen, was forced to flee to Egypt. The family moved to the village of Al-Kwayfiya, where they suffered from hunger. In 1942, the extended family was loaded onto a cattle truck bound for an unknown destination. "It was boiling hot during the day, and freezing cold at night. They didn't let us get off to eat or go to the toilet. We did everything inside the truck," recalled Ilana. The family members, including the two grandfathers, sat on the floor of the truck. Ilana's sister Yolanda fell ill on the journey. She died and was buried at the side of the road; her burial place is unknown. After some five days of traveling, the truck reached the Giado concentration camp.

At the camp, Italian soldiers concentrated all the deportees into a large barracks. The families hung up blankets that served as walls separating them from one another. Lice and fleas abounded in the camp, food was sparse, moldy, and worm-ridden, and many inmates succumbed to starvation and disease. Bedouin would come to the camp fence and sell food in exchange for gold jewelry. Ilana would climb on the fence, give them a bracelet or ring, and receive food in return, until a soldier kicked her and broke her leg. A typhus epidemic also broke out in the camp, and Ilana's sister Allegra fell ill and died.

The camp was liberated by the British army in early 1943. The Fallachs returned to Benghazi, where they were reunited with Shimon, but Muslims had overrun the family home. Ilana's broken leg caused an infection to rage through her body, and she only avoided amputation thanks to penicillin.

Shimon started working again as a tailor, but soon afterward, riots broke out, during which Jewish shops were looted and Jewish homes were torched, as was the synagogue. In the wake of the riots, the family fled in the dead of night to Tripoli. "During our time in Tripoli, we celebrated the State of Israel's first Independence Day." In 1949, the family immigrated to Israel. Ilana started working at a young age to help the family earn a living, and eventually opened a hair salon. She relates her experiences and talks about the Holocaust of Libyan Jewry to educational groups.

Ilana and Clement z"l have five children, eleven grandchildren, and twelve great-grandchildren.

Saadia Bahat was born in 1928 in Alytus, Lithuania, to Mendl and Jenia Bokshitzki. Mendl was a lawyer, and he established and ran the local volunteer police force and fire brigade. He was also a member of the city council and was the municipal secretary, receiving awards for his civic service. Jenia was a teacher who was also involved in community life.

In 1939, the family moved to Vilna. The Germans invaded in June 1941, and the family was expelled to the Vilna ghetto in September of that year. Mendel was murdered in one of the Aktionen. In September 1943, the Germans demanded volunteers to work in camps in Estonia. When Saadia heard bombing, he assumed that the Germans were bombarding the ghetto due to the lack of volunteers. To try and stop this course of action, he volunteered and parted from his mother, who, some time later, was also murdered. In Estonia, Saadia passed through six camps and was conscripted to forced labor, chopping trees and laying railway tracks. The work was sometimes carried out in swamps, in freezing temperatures without adequate clothing, and under starvation conditions that led to the deaths of many. Numerous prisoners were shot during the march from the camps to the labor sites. When Saadia's shoes fell apart, he walked barefoot in the snow.

Saadia survived several selections in the camps in Estonia. For two short periods, he carved walking sticks for the Germans and received extra bread in return. Fortunately for him, he was transferred by boat to the Stutthof concentration camp, where he was placed in a children's barracks. All the children except for Saadia and six others were sent to their deaths.

Saadia was taken to a submarine yard and worked as a welder in submarine compartments, in cramped, airless conditions. When the Eastern Front approached, the workers were marched westward on a grueling death march to a camp near Lauenburg, Pomerania. Typhus was rampant, and Saadia also fell ill. During the death march, one of the prisoners reported Saadia's illness to the Nazis, but instead of shooting him, they left him with two other prisoners in a hut. "Suddenly we heard heavy machine-gun fire. We were sure that they were murdering the marching camp inmates and would return to kill us, but then everything went silent. We lay there dying and waited. Four days later, the door opened to reveal a Soviet soldier. We were liberated!"

Saadia was hospitalized in a Soviet military hospital before slowly making his way westward. He stayed in Jewish orphanages in northern France and Marseille, and reached Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine) in February 1946.

Through the Youth Aliyah, Saadia was "reborn" and enlisted in the Haganah. He volunteered in the Palmach, fought in the Harel Brigade, and was wounded in action.

After the War of Independence, Saadia lived in Tel Gezer for a year, and then studied mechanical engineering in the Technion. He started working at the RAFAEL armament development authority in 1956, and in the course of his thirty-seven years there, he was the recipient of several awards, including the Israel Defense Prize. "My dedication to my work at RAFAEL became a family obligation-I couldn't look my grandchildren in the eye if I wasn't contributing my all," said Saadia.

Saadia retired in 1993 and embarked on a second career as a sculptor, receiving prizes in Israel and abroad.

Saadia and Dit, his wife of seventy years, have three children, eight grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.

Michael Sidko was born in 1936 in Kyiv, Ukraine, the second of four children. His father Piotr was a non-Jewish Ukrainian and the second husband of his mother, Berta née Rochlina. Berta's father was a rabbi, and they would light Shabbat candles at his house every Friday evening. Michael loved spending time with his elder brother Grisha and the pigeons he raised.

After the German invasion in June 1941, the family arrived at the train station for evacuation eastward. Michael boarded the train with his mother and siblings. Suddenly Grisha remembered that he had forgotten to open the pigeon enclosure, and, ignoring his mother's protestations, he ran home to release them so that they wouldn't die. Berta and the children followed him off the train, which departed without them. Piotr, who had to sit in a different train car, had no idea that they had disembarked, and stayed on the train. All their belongings remained on the train, except for Berta's sewing machine.

Berta and the children returned home to find that it had already been ransacked by the neighbors. Berta managed to keep the family afloat by working as a seamstress.

On September 28, 1941, the Jews of Kyiv were ordered to report to the assembly point the next morning. When the Sidkos were already on their way, some neighbors persuaded them to turn back. "Your husband is Ukrainian," they told Berta, "and therefore you are considered Ukrainians, not Jews." However, the custodian of the building informed on them, and they were arrested and taken to the Babi Yar ravine. Michael and Grisha were separated from their mother, their three-year-old sister Clara, and their baby brother, who was just six months old. The two boys witnessed the murder of their mother and siblings.

Grisha managed to smuggle Michael out, and the two children wandered from place to place seeking shelter, with Grisha always making sure Michael had food and clothes. They reached their aunt, but her husband went to call the police. Their aunt warned them, gave them food, and sent them on their way.

Michael and Grisha started hiding in the cellar of the building they had lived in, stealing a heater to stay warm. The custodian informed on them again, and the Gestapo arrested them, but they managed to convince the Nazis that they were not Jewish, and were released. Sofia Krivorot-Baklanova and her daughter Galina also lived in the building. Sofia was a teacher at the school Grisha had attended, and she knew that the boys were Jewish. Every time policemen and German soldiers came to check the building, Sofia told them that Michael and Grisha were her sons, and Galina corroborated this by saying they were her brothers. Sofia and Galina were recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations in 2004.

At the end of the war, Piotr returned to Kyiv and was reunited with Michael and Grisha.

Michael served in the Red Army and worked as an engineer. He immigrated to Israel with his family in 2000. Michael and his wife Valentina z"l have a son and a daughter, four grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.

Moshe Harari was born Monek Greenberg in 1934 in the village of Paprotnia, Poland. His parents were Zvi-Hershco and Rivka-Regina, and he had a little sister, Hanna (Hanka). The only Jewish family in the village, the Greenbergs lived on an estate with a granary, cowshed and fruit trees. Moshe's father leased orchards, sold produce, including textiles and seeds, and extended credit to the farmers. Moshe learned to read and do arithmetic from a local teacher.

In late 1941, the family was transferred to the Mordy ghetto and lived in an apartment together with other families. Zvi-Herscho would slip out of the ghetto and work with farmers, bringing food back for his family. Moshe studied Hebrew with a rabbi, and a private teacher taught him arithmetic and Polish.

In August 1942, German soldiers and Polish policemen rounded up the Jews in the market square with the intent to murder them, but the Greenbergs managed to escape to the forest. After roaming from one hiding place to another for some six months, they reached a Polish farmer called Lipinski in the village of Widze. In return for payment, he hid them behind straw bales in the attic of the barn, and later in a pit under the granary floor, where they could only lie down or sit hunched over. The farmer's daughter, Wanda, brought them bread, milk and water, scattering seeds for the chickens at the same time to avoid drawing attention to the hiding place. The Greenbergs spoke in whispers so as not to be discovered, subsisting in these untenable conditions, their bodies riddled with lice. They had two books, which Moshe read over and over.

The Red Army liberated the area in the spring of 1944. The family was able to wash properly for the first time, and it took them a few days to be able to stand upright, walk and talk normally instead of whispering. Returning home, Moshe attended the local Polish school and was subjected to antisemitism. His father vanished one day and is presumed to have been murdered. Poles burst into their home, robbed them, and threw grenades: Moshe's mother was badly injured in the attack, and Moshe was shot but survived.

Moshe secured a wagon that took them to Siedlce, where his mother was hospitalized and Moshe and his sister were looked after by the Jewish committee. The three were eventually reunited and returned to Mordy, where they lived with Jewish acquaintances. One night, a Polish rabble broke into the house and murdered ten Jews. Moshe heard the gunshots, managed to hide with his mother and sister beneath the floorboards, and they all survived the attack.

With the help of immigration emissaries, the three moved to a DP camp in Kassel, Germany, and headed to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine) in 1947 on the Kaf Tet B'November. The British intercepted the boat and sent the passengers to a detention camp in Cyprus. The Greenbergs eventually immigrated six months later. Moshe worked in the military industry for decades, contributing to the security of his country.

In 1997, Moshe took his family on a roots trip. He traveled to Widze hoping to meet the Lipinskis but, to his regret, discovered that they had passed away.

Moshe and Zehava z"l have three children, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Miriam (Daisy) Bar Lev was born in 1936 in Tel Aviv. Her mother Hertha Jonas was a member of the Blau-Weiss Jewish youth movement in Germany and immigrated to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine) as a pioneer. Her father Johan-Siegfried Van Cleef was a merchant from the Netherlands, who arrived in Eretz Israel in the course of his work. When riots broke out in Eretz Israel, the family moved to Amsterdam. Daisy and her mother would go to synagogue on the Jewish holidays.

In May 1940, Nazi Germany occupied the Netherlands, and in the spring of 1942, the Germans ordered the Jews to wear the Yellow Star on their clothing. Six-year-old Daisy wore her Yellow Star with pride, as it made her feel grown-up. That summer, the deportation of Jews to the extermination camps began. Daisy was exposed to this new reality as she saw German soldiers loading people onto a truck on her way home from school.

German soldiers "visited" Daisy's house on several occasions, so Hertha hung a notice on the door claiming "infectious disease" to deter them. Later, Daisy and her parents hid in the shower and at neighbors, and survived further raids, before they were ultimately caught. They were taken to the Dutch Theater in the city, and sent from there to the Westerbork camp. In Westerbork, community life continued in the shadow of deportations to an unknown destination in Eastern Europe, with the inmates unaware of the existence of extermination camps.

Six months later, the Van Cleef family was deported to Bergen-Belsen. Daisy and her mother were separated from Johan-Siegfried and housed in a large barracks, where they shared a bed. Hertha was put to work taking apart shoes to utilize the raw materials, while Daisy's father dug sewage ditches. However, the brutal work conditions soon took their toll, and Johann-Siegfried fell ill and died. Starving, barefoot, and inadequately clothed, Daisy and her mother spent many hours standing in roll calls in the freezing cold, as people collapsed before their eyes. Leaving the barracks at night was forbidden, and those who did so were shot.

Daisy and Hertha were sent out of Bergen-Belsen after two years of incarceration. They were marched through a forest under armed German guards accompanied by savage dogs, and then crammed into cattle cars. "I thought it was the end of us," recalled Daisy. The train, which later became known as the "Lost Train," traveled for some two weeks, stopping intermittently, and was exposed to aerial bombardments. During one of the stops, Daisy and her mother got off the train, went to a nearby village, and took some potatoes that had been given to the animals at one of the farms. On returning to the train, Hertha tried to warm up the potatoes between the cattle cars, but German soldiers stopped them from eating them. Many contracted typhus, including Daisy and Hertha, and large numbers succumbed to disease and starvation.

In April 1945, the surviving Jews in the cattle cars were liberated by the Red Army close to the town of Tröbitz in Germany. When Daisy and her mother returned to Amsterdam, their neighbors gave back some of their belongings-photo albums and silverware that the family had entrusted to them when they were sent to Westerbork.

Daisy and Hertha made their way back to Eretz Israel in 1946. Daisy settled in Kibbutz Ginegar and changed her name to Miriam. She served in the IDF and studied nursing. She worked in the national health service in Naharia and in schools until her retirement. Miriam and Zvi z"l have three sons and seven grandchildren.