My parents survived during II World War/Porcilan

Eva Rachel Porcilan

When the Germans conquered more and more countries in Europe, 500 young Jewish people from Bratislava, Czechoslovakia decided at the end of 1939 to make "aliyah" to Eretz-Israel. All of them where members of Beitar. Among them were my parents, Sarah Bonitzer-Zelmanovic (who was 18) and Shlomo Zelmanovic (who was 23). 

They go on a ship by the name Pentcho, it sailed for six months until reaching the Black Sea. When the ship arrived to the Aegean Sea, it bumped into a rock in the darkness and sank near Kamilanisy Island, all the passengers survived. After 9 days they were saved by Italians and were moved to Rhodes Island. 

Sarah and Shlomo got married in Rhodes and after a year under very bad conditions, all the people were sent from Rhodes to Ferramonti (Tarsia camp in Calabria, Italy). From the camp they were supposed to be sent by Nazi Germans to the Death Camps, but when the Italians realized what was happening to the people that were sent up north by trains, they did not allow this transportation anymore. 

So all the people survived and they stayed there until the end of the war. On 11.4.1944 I was born there in the Ferramonti-Tarsia camp. The people in Ferramonti treated us very humanly. They delivered food, medicine and all they could have to make the situation easier for them, while they also had very little to survive the war. 

Sarah and Shlomo Zelmanovic together with their daughter Eva (11 month) arrived Israel from Bari - Italy - in March 1945.

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