Faces of Iron: Emma

Stand for Israel | October 2, 2024

(Photo: Guy Yechiely)

Born in a small town on the Ukrainian border, Emma was nine years old when the Nazis invaded. “My family did not manage to escape in time,” she says, “and we were all sent to the ghetto.”
Life in the ghetto was hard. The things Emma saw from a young age are too awful to bear—Nazi soldiers killing Jewish children and leaving them in the ghetto streets for all to see. True terror—simply because of God’s people’s faith.

“Now I see history repeating itself,” Emma says. “We Jews are once again attacked and murdered.”
Emma again witnessed this anti-Semitism firsthand. Recalling the events of October 7th, she thinks of “how innocent children and women hid in their homes when the Hamas terrorists broke in. Like Nazis soldiers back then, Hamas terrorists indiscriminately murdered women and children and kidnapped elderly people like me to the Gaza Strip.”

Emma survived October 7th, but in the days since she still lives in fear. The nearest bomb shelter is across the street from the 90-year-old Holocaust survivor’s apartment—there is no way she can make it to safety when rocket sirens sound.

But for 90 years, Emma has survived, praise God. And today, she still finds hope and strength because of your help: “The Fellowship continues to send me food packages, thanks to which I manage to survive. I draw encouragement that there are so many Christians who care about the elderly in Israel both during routine times and especially during times of war.”