Faces of The Fellowship: Corina Finds Comfort

The Fellowship  |  April 8, 2021

Corina who made aliyah from Romania

When 93-year-old Corina lost her husband, someone who she built a life with in the Holy Land after they made aliyah (immigrated to Israel) together from Romania years ago, she felt very lost.

Today, she turns to The Fellowship for support. She is just one of the 15,000 elderly and Holocaust survivors we reach through our flagship program With Dignity and Fellowship, which cares for Israel’s poorest elderly and Holocaust survivors every year and provides for them for the rest of their life.

We feel so privileged to care for elderly like Corina, whose life growing up in Romania was full of so many tragedies. She was just 13 years old when WWII began. After the Bucharest bombing of 1944, thousands of citizens were killed or injured, and over 40,000 were left homeless. Corina remembers the danger her family faced living in a war zone: “We were not able to be in our house. We were very frightened. We couldn’t get out of Romania. That was the worst.”

Just after the war ended, she was able to leave Romania and came to Israel. “They didn’t let us take anything with us. Not our clothes, not money, absolutely nothing, just some small things. We came here to Israel and we had to start from the beginning.” Corina worked as a cleaning woman and her husband worked in a fabric factory. It was hard work, but they were happy. “We were very happy that we were here and we were free and could talk with people.”

Today, Corina doesn’t have enough income to survive, and she would be vulnerable to the harsh realities of poverty if it weren’t for The Fellowship. A Fellowship volunteer, Etsy, visits Corina weekly to take care of her and bring her food. Corina has nothing but kind words to say about The Fellowship: “Etsy is special. You are special. I say it again, thank you very much to all of you.”

Your gift today can provide nourishment – both physical and spiritual – to an elderly Holocaust survivor like Corina.