Those We Have Lost

Karin Vernikov, 22: Partygoer known for her signature chocolate cake

Murdered by Hamas terrorists while trying to flee the Supernova music festival on October 7

Karin Vernikov (Facebook)
Karin Vernikov (Facebook)

Karin Vernikov, 22, from Rishon Lezion, was murdered by Hamas terrorists while trying to flee the Supernova music festival on October 7.

She attended the rave with her friends Sapir Bilmes and Amit David, who were also both murdered there.

After a week of frantic searching and waiting, her body was found and her family notified. She was buried on October 15 in Rishon Lezion.

She is survived by her parents, Leonid and Luba, and her sister Maria.

Her family said she had recently completed her mandatory service in the IDF Adjutant Corps, and returned from a big trip to South America just a few weeks before she was slain. She met Sapir and other friends she attended the party with during her long South American adventure. She also loved to cook and bake, and would always make her famous chocolate cake on weekends, they said.

“Karin loved life, to celebrate, to cook, to be happy, she was full of positivity,” her sister Maria told a local Rishon Lezion news outlet. “She had a unique outlook on life, she accepted everyone no matter the situation, she made everyone around her feel interesting and important. She had a boundless curiosity, she always aspired to learn and gain knowledge from everyone.”

Maria said, “Karin really loved the kitchen, she would make incredible spicy fish, great matbucha, and meats. She also really loved to bake and her [chocolate cake] was her signature… Every event she was invited to, they knew she would bring her cake. Since we lost her, many people around me have made it, family, friends and even my son’s caretaker. The cake connects us to her.”

Her boyfriend, David Azrad, wrote on Facebook that he was meant to attend the Supernova rave with Karin and told her at the last minute that he wasn’t going: “I’m sorry that I wasn’t there for you in those moments, you were everything to me, you were my whole life,” he wrote, recalling meeting her in Brazil on a hammock “and since then we were never apart, we already had a name, ‘the couple who slept in the hammock.'”

“You were everything to me, I never believed that I could love someone, especially when I promised myself that I wouldn’t fall in love during the trip, and ultimately you came to me and you changed all that… After a week apart I already missed you so much,” he added. “I love you so much that I can’t handle this pain anymore.”

One month after she was killed, her mother Luba wrote on Facebook: “Karin my love, my little one, my spoiled one, my life, I can still hear your rolling laughter, your footsteps in the house, I still listen to hear the door open. I miss you so much.”

“You had only just started to live, and they took from you your life so cruelly,” she wrote.

Two days later, Luba added: “You are part of me, my little Karini, you are my whole world and my heart and my breath. You are my air and my sun and my happiness. You left without coming back and without saying a word,” she wrote.

“My little girl won’t come back, I can’t hug you. I miss you so much my dear girl, you became an angel to watch over me. How can I go on, how can I breathe without you???”

Read more Those We Have Lost stories here.

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