Project Spotlight: Emergency Call Buttons for Holocaust Survivors
The Fellowship | March 18, 2024
In partnership with The Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims in Israel, we provide emergency call buttons that connect to a support hotline providing an array of services including doctor home visits, ambulance access, medical advice, psychological consultation, and more. This hotline is lifesaving – just ask Anya!
Blessings from The Fellowship
“I share my Holocaust story all the time,” Anya tells us. This survivor was only a toddler when World War II broke out, but she remembers every detail. She was taken to a ghetto with her mother, where Nazi soldiers would shoot at the starving Jews. “The Nazis were killing us slowly,” she says.
Anya’s strongest memory is of her mother, who sacrificed everything for her children, making sure they were clean and healthy by taking them with her wherever she was forced to go. This saved Anya’s life: “The Nazis used to just throw weak kids to the ditches. My brother and I didn’t look weak.”
Later in life, she was finally able to make aliyah (immigrate to Israel), which was a lifelong hope and prayer. “I finally felt myself alive in Israel!” But because of the suffering she endured in the Holocaust, Anya’s health is deteriorating — she has had three leg surgeries, cannot walk properly, and suffers from high blood pressure. This is why The Fellowship stepped in — to help her survive.
She was deeply touched when Fellowship friends visited for the first time, after being so accustomed to spending her days alone. Then we installed an emergency call button in her room, in case of any medical emergency and to give her piece of mind for the hours she is alone in her home. Anya says: “I’m alone and at the same time not alone – thanks to The Fellowship!” And she says she feels so blessed to feel this love and care from The Fellowship every day.