Kimona and Bishi Trabelsi

My parents, Kimona (Rahima) and Bishi Trabelsi, emigrated from Tunisia. Mother arrived in 1950 and father in 1954. They got married in Israel. At the time, they lived in Moshav Eitan. On June 23, 1957, mother gave birth to the eldest daughter in Kaplan hospital. The birth went well and everything was fine. She was not shown the baby, not even for one second after the birth. Four days she was hospitalized and waited, and they did not show her the baby. Finally, on the fourth day, they informed her that the baby had died. Without a death certificate or a body. They gave her nothing – not even a piece of paper.

A few days after the birth, after mother was discharged and went to her parents in Moshav Tlamim, a telegram arrived for my father, telling him to come Wizo in Tel Aviv. He went there with his friend and was told: sign this, sign that. He didn’t understand anything and signed. He didn’t speak to mother beforehand. There were no phones then and he did not know if she gave birth or not.

Father came to Tlamim and mother told him the child had died. Our grandfather, who worked in the Jewish Burial Society (Chevra Kadisha), said that they had to show her the body, that it’s unheard of.

A year later, mother went to the Kaplan hospital to give birth again. They asked her if this was her first birth and she said no, that she gave birth a year before. The nurses did not know and there was no documentation at all that the child had died. Mother informed them herself.

Three months ago, on a Saturday, my mother said that they apparently were lied to. Until recently she hardly spoke of it. So I went to the Kaplan hospital and searched for information from June 1957. They refused and asked for a signed letter from my mother. I wrote a letter and mother signed it. Meanwhile, I'm waiting and waiting. The clerk working there said that there is no record of that birth at all.

It’s important to mention that members of our family have FMF disease (Familial Mediterranean Fever).

Yair Trabelsi