Updated: 8am GMT -- 2005/01/27
Features
It's never too late for a new life TWO German-born sisters in their 90s have begun the first full day of the rest of their lives, settling into an Israeli senior citizens home after negotiating a tortuous path that brought them from Holland, the Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp and suburban New York City. Irma Haas, 97, and Hilde Meyer, 94, arrived at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv yesterday after spending 58 years in New York. They travelled to Israel together with about 200 other new American immigrants. Yesterday, they appeared bright and smiling in their new home in Jerusalem, their barely lined faces reflecting implacable optimism. "I feel very good to be in Israel," said Haas. "I already feel at home." A cousin, Judy Marcus, related the sisters' improbable life stories, filling in the blanks when excitement temporarily overcame their normally reliable memories. Marcus said the pair left their homes in Hesse state in western Germany in 1938 and went to Holland shortly after Kristallnacht - the "night of broken glass" - when Nazi gangs attacked Jewish homes and property and destroyed synagogues throughout the country. Marcus said the sisters were deported from Amsterdam to the Bergen-Belsen camp after the Nazi conquest of Holland, and they were on a train bound for the Auschwitz death camp in 1945 when Russian forces liberated them. Marcus said the sisters' strong religious faith - they were brought up in a strictly observant Jewish household - was the key to surviving their ordeal. "It took two strong women to get through Bergen-Belsen," she said. "The depth of their religious commitment gave them everything they needed to persevere." Marcus said the sisters arrived to New York City in 1946 and found work there, Haas as a kindergarten teacher and Meyer as a secretary. She said they moved into the same Englewood, New Jersey home in 1978, shortly after the deaths of their German-Jewish husbands. "The two of them stayed there together all those years," Marcus said. "But in 2003, when Hilde was hospitalised for a fall, they realised they needed assisted living." "They were familiar with a senior citizens home in Jerusalem," she said. "It caters to religiously observant people, and has many other German-Jewish refugees. So the choice was an easy one." Haas said she was already looking forward to learning Hebrew, a new language to add to her existing German, Dutch and English. "It may not be easy, particularly at my advanced age," she said. "But I will do the best I can." - Sapa-AP Eastern Cape South Africa Foreign Business Stocks & Stats Sport Editorial Chiel Letters to the Editor Leader Page Today's Columns Features Motoring Farming Arts & Entertainment Television Radio Weather Tides Aircraft
...
Remembering Auschwitz
IT is a structure like many others: a museum complex made up of a series of drab but functional brick buildings hemmed in by tall trees and tailored patches of green grass. Tour guides negotiate the well-worn gravel paths with practiced ease. At...
German guilt
ONE in five Germans feels personal guilt over the Holocaust, 60 years after the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, according to a poll released yesterday. When asked: "Must we still feel guilty today for Auschwitz?" 20 percent of the 1 006 ...
Chrysanthemum heir crisis
Is this the future Japanese empress? By Julian Ryall in Tokyo SCHOLARS, politicians and business leaders have begun debating whether to rewrite Japanese law and save the imperial family from possible extinction by letting a woman sit on the Chrysa...
Japan's royals show more human, modern face
JAPAN'S royal family enters 2005 showing a more human and modern face after members of the world's oldest imperial line openly aired their emotions in a way that would have been unthinkable a year ago. The new year could spell more changes ...
New look Nederburg
The Nederburg Auction, the annual industry showcase for rare and outstanding Cape wines, is heading into its 31st year, reformatted and rejuvenated to suit the new South African wine trading environment. THE EVENT, which will run over one day, Sat...
In praise of Gadaffi
Zolani Mkiva, the Eastern Cape's Poet of Africa, has released a DVD in honour of Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi. Nosipho Kota spoke to him. ZOLANI Mkiva is a man possessed. Possessed with words, the sound of them rolling off his tongue. He has be...
Distance is not the difference
Gavin Stewart takes the Karoo route to Cape Town. WHEN the urge to be otherwise takes hold of us we do things that are not obvious - like driving inland to reach the coast. Commonsense tells us that driving from East London to Cape Town via Graa...
