Holocaust survivor dies 2 weeks after great-grandson killed in Gaza as she visited Nazi camp

Two weeks after her great-grandson was killed fighting in northern Gaza, 96-year-old Holocaust survivor Magda Baratz died on Friday, it was announced Sunday.

On April 24, IDF reservist Master Sgt. (res.) Asaf Cafri was killed by sniper fire in the Beit Hanoun area of Gaza, in an attack that wounded three others.

At the time Cafri was killed, Baratz was attending a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where she was honored as a survivor of the death march from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen. She traveled there with her grandson Hagai, Cafri’s father.

Both only learned of Cafri’s death upon their arrival back in Israel.

Baratz died on Friday, leaving behind three children, 10 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren, the family said.

She will be buried Sunday at 5 p.m. at the Ganei Esther Cemetery in Rishon Lezion.

Her son Ohad told the Ynet outlet that Baratz had a strong connection to Assaf, her oldest great-grandson, and that his death “was very painful to her.”

He said she “faded” after her return from Germany, where she was accompanied by family members from three generations.

“For her [the visit] was closure, to go back there with family to the camp that she survived,” he said.

Ohad noted that Baratz had also survived the Auschwitz camp.

Cafri, a tank driver in the 14th Reserve Armored Brigade’s 79th Battalion, from Beit Hashmonai, was standing outside his tank when he and three others were shot, according to an initial IDF investigation.