Birthday festivities this year for Mrs. Shoshana Ovitz, who survived Auschwitz, included a massive, joyous gathering of descendants at the Western Wall in the Jewish people’s eternal capital.
By United with Israel Staff
Shoshana Ovitz not only survived the Holocaust, she thrived and prospered after the war, helping to rebuild the Jewish people by starting a family whose branches have reached far and wide.
Ovitz’s descendants, who number in the hundreds, decided to grant their matriarch’s request by staging a huge family gathering this year to celebrate her 104th birthday at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Yeshiva World News (YWN) reported.
When asked to provide the secret to her long life, Ovitz reportedly explained that her devotion to honoring her mother and father is the reason she merited such longevity, according to YWN.
Israeli journalist Sivan Rahav Meir relayed the following account on Twitter from one of Ovitz’s grandchildren on the day of the celebration, “My grandmother, Shoshana Ovitz, survived Auschwitz. In front of her eyes Dr. Mengele took her mother. After the war, she met her husband Dov, who lost his wife and children in the camps. They got married and went to Haifa. She worked as a seamstress and helped him run the store. Now, as her 104th birthday is celebrated, she asked for a gift: that all the offspring come together at the Western Wall.”