HAYA BEN YOSEF - HAYA KRITORO

HOLOCAUST PROJECT KATZENELSON HIGH SCHOOL ISRAEL

MAIL: nir5daniel@gmail.com  , isbigal@gmail.com  

First Name: Haya

Last Name: Ben Yosef

Foreign last name: Kritoro  

Father: Simcu (Shimha) 

Mother: Feyga (Zipora)

Year  of Birth: 1934

SAVENI 

Săveni is a small town located in Botoşani County in the Moldavia region in northeastern Romania. It has a population of 8,685 people.

In 1934 there were 1764 Jews in Săveni.

   

Romania was one of Germany  ally's.

On the 8th of November, 1941- the Jews from Saveni and Mihaileni were evacuated by the Nazis to Transnistria.

Transnistria is an artificial geographic term, created in World War II, referring to the part of the Ukraine conquered by German and Romanian troops in the summer of 1941. Before the war, this area had a Jewish population of 300,000. Tens of thousands of them were slaughtered by Einsatzgruppe D, and by German and Romanian forces. When Transnistria was occupied, it was used for the concentration of the Jews of Bessarabia, Bukovina, and northern Moldavia who were expelled on the direct order of Ion Antonescu. The deportations began on September 15, 1941, and continued, until the fall of 1942. Most of the Jews who survived the mass killings carried out in Bessarabia and Bukovina were deported to Transnistria by the end of 1941. deported Also  to Transnistria were  political prisoners  and Jews who had evaded the existing regulations on forced labor. The total number of deportees was apparently 150,000, although German sources put the figure at 185,000. On October 13, 1942, the Romanians called a halt to the deportations to Transnistria.

The ghettos and camps in the region were in the hands of the gendarmerie and the Romanian administrative authorities. In late November 1941 most of the Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina were gathered into ghettos and camps in northern and central Transnistria. Following the Antonescu - ordered slaughter of the Jews of Odessa, the Romanian occupation authorities deporte

d the survivors to camps in the Golta district: 54,000 to the Bogdanovka camp, 18,000 to the Akhmetchetka camp, and 8,000 to the Domanevka camp. In Bogdanovka all the Jews were shot to death, with the Romanian gendarmerie, the Ukrainian police, and Sonderkommando R, made up of Volksdeutsche, taking part. In January and February 1942, 12,000 Ukrainian Jews were murdered in the two other camps. Another 28,000 Jews, mostly from the Ukraine, were killed by the SS and German police, with the help of local Germans in southern Transnistria. By March 1943 no more than 485 Ukrainian Jews were left in all of southern Transnistria. A total of 185,000 Ukrainian Jews were murdered by Romanian and German army units.

The Romanians had no plans for the resettlement of tens of thousands of deportees from Romania, and their sole aim was to drive the Jews further east and north. No provisions were made for the most basic necessities. The winter of 1941 - 1942 was severe, with tens of thousands of deportees perishing. The deported Romanian Jews organized  on their own and tried to establish mutual aid. The situation improved as the winter of 1942 - 1943 drew near, when the first shipments of aid from the Jewish communities in the Regat and southern Transylvania reached the Jews in Transnistria.

Haya Ben Yosef INTERVIEW

Haya Kritoro was born on 11/2/1930 Romania Săveni. She had 4 brothers and 4 sisters.
(Listed from the oldest to the youngest) Zvi , Ester, Shoshana, Aharon , the twins Ishahayahu and Cherna, Haya and Avraham.Her father's name was Simcu, whose occupation was a horse's carts maker. Her mother's name was Feyga and she was a seamstress and a housewife. Her family was traditional and they celebrated the Jewish holidays.In 1941, they were expelled from their town to Dorohoi  Those who had relatives were located at their houses and the rest were located at the synagogue.Her family lived at her mother's aunt house.

Half a year later, there were expelled to Transnistria. On their way, they passed the Denster River by rafts. Many people fell off the rafts and drowned. Romanian soldiers who escorted the passengers pushed adults to the water. As they arrived to Mengaletz, they were sorted to different places. The families which had a member with a profession, got a better town with better conditions. The Ukrainians took Hayah's father to work in Koroz, a town out of the concentration camp, because of his profession. One of the Jews informed the Nazis that Haya's family lived there and the Nazis transferred them to Korniva (huge rooms). They lived in a huge room with hundreds of beds, but still there were too many people in it.  The concentration camp was so crowded; they had to sleep one on top of the other. Many people died in the camps from diseases and hunger. The hygiene level was low and it was one of the reasons for many diseases. Her father died of typhus, while they were in the concentration camp. Her brother also got sick and he became handicapped. They sold almost all of their belongings for food.
One day at the camp, her brother's hands started to shake, her mother called a doctor and the doctor said that his condition was going to get worse and his head would start shaking soon. In the morning, he saw his head shaking as well. He dreamed about his father, who gave him as medicine, a piece of onion and some bread. He ate it and stopped shaking. When he woke up, he told his mother about the dream. She sent him to work with his sister in the kindergarten where the children got free meals. He did so and the day after he healed.Her mother was walking every night 30km to a near town to trade her merchandise. One night Haya's sister joined her on the walk and both of them got caught. They got away because Haya's uncle had connections with the Jewish police. Every night Haya waited for her mother to come back and bring her food. After a while they moved into a little apartment with two other families. The conditions there were better, but they suffered from hunger and diseases. One of the families that lived with them was of a high social level. This family always had food and the kids of this family always tried to hide the butter they had on the bread; so they held the bread upside down to cover the butter.One of Haya's sisters was a seamstress. Most of the time Haya's family ate gruel and potato peals. After the war, they came back to Romania. According to their request, they were transferred to their home town. That's when they discovered that their house was destroyed by the common people, leaving them homeless. Haya's cousin managed to break into an old house and they lived there. During that period, they had economic difficulties. Because of the war, a lot of Russian soldiers were in Romania. Haya's sister knew a Russian from her job in Ukraine. The Russian soldiers used her as a translator. They told her "If you can give us vodka, we will give you everything you want". She brought them vodka and received 3 horses.  Haya's family sold the horses and opened a store. Using the money they got from relatives and from the store, they sent Haya's handicapped brother to the closet hospital. He got treatment and his condition improved. That brother was the manager of the shop. He was 23 years old. Haya and the children of the family went to school, where she learned the basics of Hebrew. In 1948 her brother and her sister sailed to Israel illegally  with  the Zion youth movement.
The ship got caught by British soldiers, who sent them to Cyprus. Three months later, they immigrated to Israel. Haya's mother was very sorry for sending her children to Israel and was very sad. The moment the gates to Israel opened, Haya, her mother and the rest of her close family immigrate to Israel too in a ship called 

Transnistria. First, they were sent to "Shaar Aliya". From there they were divided to the places they chose. They asked to move to Even Jehuda, but there wasn't enough room. So they send to Pardes Hana. Haya lived there for a while and then moved to kibbutz "Merhavya". At that time, the rest of the family lived in Even Yehuda. In the kibbutz she learned Hebrew, her job in the kibbutz was to appoint people to suitable  jobs  . She was at the culture committee and dancing groups. After she felt secure with the life in Israel and talked Hebrew well, she moved to Even Yehuda.                             Haya applied to work as a cashier in a supermarket thanks to her language skills. Her family lived in a tent. Their only furniture was a box and a closet. They turned a few boxes into tables and received iron beds. 1951 was a hard year to manage. There was a hard winter which included very powerful winds; many tents flew with the wind except theirs. After two years they saved enough money to buy one room apartment.
Isaac was born in 1930 in Dorohoi. His parents' names were Rosa and Ze'ev. Isaac had 5 other brothers and sisters (from the oldest to the youngest) lea, Hana , Sali , Isaac , Pnina and the smallest Menahem.  His father was a merchant. Isaac liked to go with his dad to trade and from that, he learned a lot about trading. During the Holocaust, his family was sent to 

Transnistria, where both of his parents died. At the end of the war, when they came back to their town, their uncles had been waiting for them with two loafs of bread and rages. After living with him for a while, her uncle saw he couldn’t feed all the 6 children, so he sent all of them beside Isaac to an orphanage. His knowledge in trading helped him get food for his brothers and after that, he start trading with his uncle. Most of the people in the area knew his father and that fact made the trading easier. Isaac lived with his uncle until he made "Aliya" to Israel. In Israel he started working as a farmer in Even Yehuda. Isaac was one of Haya's brother's friends. Haya and Isaac met and after a couple of years got married. They lived in "Even Yehuda".  First they lived in one room apartment with a chicken coop in their garden. Isaac continued working as a farmer and Haya as a cashier. But when their first son Ze'ev was born they named him after Isaac's father. Haya stopped working  . After that Gili was born and then Zipora who was named after Haya's mother. Now Haya has 8 grandchildren.The sons of Ze'ev – Yaron, Ido and Ori
The son of Gili- Tomer and the daughter – Noa And Zipora's sons – Amit , gal and roni