A Holocaust survivor was rescued from a burning building on Thursday, Holocaust Remembrance Day, after a fire ripped through her apartment in the central city of Givatayim and lightly injured two people.
The two people lightly hurt were receiving medical treatment and police were investigating what sparked the blaze.
Firefighters invited the Hungary-born survivor to their Holocaust commemoration event later in the afternoon at the local station.
Yehudit Schindler, 87, thanked the firefighters, describing them as “angels, not like the tormentors of that time.”
“I have no words. I feel 20 years younger,” she said. “I suppose I am meant to live. At the age of 12 and a half I left Budapest alone without parents, without a soul, I saved myself.”
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“I am not a hero, I am only a human being, and I am happy,” she said, according to footage released by the local fire department.
Israel came to a standstill at 10 a.m. Thursday as sirens wailed throughout the country in memory of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis during World War II. The annual remembrance is one of the most solemn days on Israel’s national calendar, with much of the country all but shutting down to honor those who suffered under the Nazi killing machine.
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