My grandfather and grandmother, my uncle and aunts, were murdered at the Ninth Fort. My father was separated from us and sent to Dachau, where he was murdered.
My mother, who survived the Stutthof camp and the death march with me, did not survive the tuberculosis that she contracted during the war, and she died after liberation.
I endured the atrocities of war as a ten-year-old girl, who took the responsibility of the family's welfare on her shoulders. Each night, I would crawl under the barbed wire surrounding the ghetto, in order to smuggle in food for my family. And then the end of the war came, and I found myself sick and alone.
I made the decision to return to Kovno and search for my brother, who vanished on the day of the deportation to Stutthof, after which we had no knowledge of his fate.
I went back to Kovno, the city of my birth, only to discover a city almost empty of Jews. The streets, which had bustled with Jews for hundreds of years, were solitary. The Hebrew Gymnasium, the synagogues, the theatre and cultural buildings stood silent. Yiddish and Hebrew would not be heard there again, and the aroma of Sabbath cooking did not waft from the windows of the houses. An entire world had been obliterated.
Unexpectedly, I met my brother. We started to build a new life from the fragments of our old one. We embarked on the struggle to immigrate to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine), but to our disappointment, all doors were closed to us.
Only in 1973 did we succeed in fulfilling our dream, when my husband and I, and the family we were privileged to raise, received immigration permits. Our hearts' desire was realized, and we merited to stand on the soil of Eretz Israel, our Homeland.
Now I stand here before you proud and emotional, a Jew, an Israeli, wife, mother and grandmother to grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Who would have believed then, in a period when we were parted from our children and our elders, that we would have an independent, strong state, in which Jews can talk and study in Hebrew with pride. In which we can educate generations of babies and children in a Jewish state, naturally and without fear. The Zionist dream that my husband and I clung to, became reality before our very eyes.
As a Holocaust survivor, I call upon the entire nation not to forget! To remember the Holocaust, the heroism of the Jewish people during this dark time, and the memory of our murdered brethren.
We emerged from the abyss, we regained our strength, and we established a wonderful country, which we must never take for granted.
As a woman who loves mankind, I want to add that I call for unity. The principle "Love thy neighbor as thyself" is one that should accompany us every day and every hour, because in our unity lies our strength.
From the Mount of Remembrance on this special evening, I bear a message of unity and independence, for the sake of future generations and the eternal continuity of the State of Israel.
Roza Bloch
Roza Bloch was born in 1930 in Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania, to Anna and Markus Gapanovich. She had an older brother, Boris. The family was actively involved in Jewish community life. Anna worked as a manager at a Singer factory and Markus was a businessman, who owned a timber export company. Roza and Boris studied at the Schwabs Hebrew Gymnasium in Kaunas and participated in the activities of the Maccabi sports movement in Kaunas.
In June 1941, the Germans invaded Lithuania. Roza witnessed the murder of dozens of Jews by beatings and strangulation in the yard of the Lietūkis garage perpetrated by Lithuanians. Soon after, the Germans, with the help of Lithuanians, embarked on mass systematic shootings of the Jews. Two of her uncles and their children were murdered in the Seventh Fort by Lithuanians and Germans.
In August, the Germans established a ghetto in Kaunas and the family was interned there. Markus, Anna and Roza were recruited for forced labor outside the ghetto, while Boris stayed to work in the ghetto. Every day, when she went to work, Roza smuggled clothes out of the ghetto and traded them with Lithuanians for food, which she smuggled back into the ghetto for her family. At night, taking a mortal risk, Roza crawled under the barbed wire fence surrounding the ghetto, to get more food for the family and somewhat alleviate the constant distress of gnawing hunger.
During the Great Aktion in the ghetto in October 1941, Roza's paternal grandparents, and uncles and aunts were murdered in the Ninth Fort. Her maternal grandparents died of disease in the ghetto.
Roza was again recruited for forced labor, this time in agriculture. She was later deported with her parents and brother to the Palemonas camp and assigned to forced labor in a brick factory. Roza and her parents were returned from the camp to the Kaunas ghetto. On the way to the ghetto, her brother escaped. The next day, Roza and her mother were deported from the ghetto to the Stutthof concentration camp. Her father was sent to Dachau and murdered there.
Roza and Anna were transferred to other camps where they worked in forced labor, which included digging anti-tank trenches.
Roza tried to escape but was captured and returned to the labor camp. She escaped again, was caught again and transferred to forced labor in various camps. Several times she teetered on the verge of death, but survived thanks to her mother. Roza and Anna were forced on a death march to Chinow, where they were liberated by the Red Army in the spring of 1945 suffering from typhoid fever. Anna, who had survived the Stutthof camp and the death march with Roza, succumbed shortly after liberation to tuberculosis, which she had contracted during the war.
Roza returned to Kaunas to look for surviving family members, and found her brother Boris. She resumed her studies, studied chemistry at the Technion of Kaunas and advanced to the position of senior manager in a confectionary industry.
Roza married Bezalel and the two secretly continued Zionist activities at constant risk. In 1973, they immigrated to Israel with their two daughters.
Roza is active in the Association of Lithuanian Survivors in Israel, lectures to schoolchildren and IDF soldiers, and participates in a range of activities to commemorate the Holocaust.
Roza and Bezalel have two daughters, four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
