'I don’t ever want anyone to feel abandoned like I did'

Jews around the world should learn self-defense, Holocaust survivor David Frankel said in an interview ahead of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The 89-year-old, now a retired judge living in Jerusalem, survived Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and later made his way to Mandatory Palestine. Once there, Frankel fought in nearly every war in Israel’s history—from the War of Independence and the Six-Day War to the First Lebanon War.

“People ask me how it is possible that Jews did not retaliate, did not fight against the Germans,” Frankel said. “Jews in Europe were considered to be spiritual people. Some were merchants. The vast majority had nothing to do with rifles. They did not even know what a rifle looks like, not to mention using it.”

Arabs in Palestine had the same intentions toward the Jews there as Nazis did in Europe, Frankel said—but this time, the Jews fought back and continue to fight.

Sitting in a large recliner in his Jerusalem home, Frankel recounted his early years, mostly spent in Hungary. His mother, a seamstress in the ghetto, was forced to sew the yellow stars Jews were made to wear. Eventually, they were transferred to Bergen-Belsen. That’s when his mother became a war hero, Frankel said.

“My little brother, Isaac, was half-a-year old and still nursing,” Frankel recalled. “I don’t know how—it was a miracle—my mother, despite the horrible conditions in such a camp, succeeded to have milk for the baby.”

One day, another mother came to Frankel’s mother crying—her baby was starving. Frankel, standing next to his mother, remembered how the woman pleaded with her, saying the other babies would die without milk. From that day forward, Frankel’s mother hand-expressed her milk and divided it evenly between Isaac and the other infants in the camp. Frankel would deliver cups of his mother’s milk to the other mothers.

Years later, when Frankel and his mother were visiting New York, they heard a knock on the door. A short woman and a tall young man were standing there. The woman immediately hugged and kissed Frankel’s mother. She told his mother that her son survived because of her milk—and now that once-starving baby had grown into a strong young man.

A similar moment occurred years after his mother passed away, when a woman in the southern Israeli city of Arad discovered Frankel’s identity. She called him and shared her story: that his mother’s milk had saved her life.

Bert Badichi is 93 years old. Born in Lyon, France, she was forced into hiding after the German occupation of France in 1940. She stayed at the home of Madame Massona, about 100 kilometers away from Lyon, where she lived as a Christian.

A handful of other Jewish children also lived in hiding as Christians in that village.

“I knew what I was doing,” Badichi recalled during an interview at her modest home on the outskirts of Jerusalem. “My parents said I have to be Christian. I did as much as I could to play. For me, it was playing, like for theatre or film.”

She stayed in Madame Massona’s home for four years, starting at age 9, while her parents joined the resistance. Her mother helped find hiding places for Jewish children, and her father printed and distributed underground leaflets, trying to alert people to what was really happening in their country. Constantly on the move, her parents lived in fear of being caught.

Madame Massona treated Badichi like her own child. Badichi even grew close to the woman’s children, whom she considered her “siblings” and is still in touch with today.

One day, Badichi’s mother made the dangerous journey to visit her. She was in Madame Massona’s home when a Nazi officer was seen approaching. Quickly grasping the danger, Madame Massona intercepted the officer at the end of the road and ensured he never entered the home—saving both Badichi and her mother’s lives.

Years later, after her death, Madame Massona was honored as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, Israel’s designation for non-Jews who helped save Jews during the Holocaust.

“She was a simple lady,” Badichi said, “but I owe her my life.”

To this day, Badichi says that whenever someone claims all French people are antisemitic or makes sweeping generalizations about any group, she remembers Madame Massona—and the lesson that even in the darkest times, there are still good people in the world.

“You never get out completely from this trauma,” Holocaust survivor Suzy Sprecher said. “I cannot overcome this feeling of abandonment.”

Sprecher’s parents met in Belgium and married in 1940. Her mother became pregnant soon after. But by May of that year, the Germans had invaded Holland, Belgium, and France, forcing the young couple to flee.

“They jumped from train to train until they arrived in the southwest of France in a little city on the outskirts,” Sprecher explained. That’s where she was born. However, just eight days after her birth, she was sent to live on a farm with a paid host family while her parents hid in a small room.

When she was not yet a year old, the family moved to a smaller apartment in front of a coffee shop. But in 1942, when mass deportations began in their region, their lives were once again in danger.

Her father escaped into the forest, while the coffee shop owner hid Sprecher and her mother. They had to remain silent at all times.

“But we survived,” Sprecher said. “Most Jews from the area were deported to Auschwitz and disappeared.”

Later, they were smuggled into Switzerland, where a Catholic priest hid them. After the Nazis discovered the hiding place, the family had to flee again. The priest was later executed by the Gestapo.

In June 1945, Sprecher and her mother were sent to Belgium. Her father joined them a year later.

“Life was extremely difficult,” Sprecher recalled. “My father did not know French. I went to the public school, and in certain ways the children became the parents of the parents—for the language and everything. It was a very hard time.”

At age 14, Sprecher joined a Zionist youth movement, where she met the man who would become her husband. He had hidden in a cellar for three years during the Holocaust. Sprecher said meeting someone who understood her was life changing.

“We revealed to each other that we were hidden children,” Sprecher said. “In a certain way, it saved my life because now I had someone to talk to.”

Sprecher never had siblings—her mother was unable to have more children after the Holocaust. “I always say the hidden children are the children of silence. They were silenced in the Holocaust and they stayed silent afterwards,” she said.

At 18, Sprecher got married. The couple vowed to fight back against the Nazis—not with weapons, but by building meaningful, productive lives. Her husband became a doctor of chemistry; Sprecher became a virologist. They had three sons, all of whom moved to Israel and built successful careers. Her eldest is the director general of Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center.

“I would say that coming from nothing, we have three very successful boys,” Sprecher said with a smile. She has lived in Israel for the past 20 years, ever since her parents passed away.

She often thinks of the 1.5 million children murdered in the Holocaust—and why she was spared. Sprecher acknowledged her family’s success, but said survival means more than personal achievement.

“It is to be there for other people, to be a resource,” she said. “I never let someone be alone. Today, there is a huge problem of loneliness. Many people are very lonely. I don’t ever want anyone to feel abandoned like I did.”