HAIFA (Press Release)–An emotional first-time meeting took place at the University of Haifa between two survivors of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp: Miriam Yahav, 83, and Nahum Bendel, 82.
The two became connected five years ago, in 2005, when Yahav spontaneously stepped up to the stage at a ceremony in Poland commemorating 60 years of the liberation of Auschwitz and shrieked: “Here I became a number”, while exposing the number on her arm.
Bendel, who had learned drawing during time spent in the refugee camp in Cyprus in 1945, was watching that ceremony from his home in Kiryat Haim near Haifa, and the power of her cry made him want to draw the scene. After completing the work, in which Yahav appears much larger in relation to the audience at the ceremony, he approached her with a request to send the drawing to the President of Israel.
The two established a telephone relationship from that time, but never met face to face. Hearing that Yahav was to give her testimonial at the University of Haifa’s Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony, he decided to surprise her there. “I feel as if we have known each other for years,” Yahav exclaimed with excitement. “I knew how she looked, but now I am sure that I captured her spirit in my drawing too,” Bendel said.
- Nathan Bendel’s drawing
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Preceding provided by the University of Haifa