A 96-year-old Holocaust survivor formally completed her aliyah on Wednesday in Tel Aviv, nearly eight decades after her liberation from Nazi camps, surrounded by five generations of her descendants.
Charlotte Roth finalized her immigration process with the assistance of Nefesh B’Nefesh and Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority, in cooperation with the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, The Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael and Jewish National Fund-USA.
Learn how to buy your home in Israel with confidenceHer decision to complete the process in Israel was driven in part by her desire to be closer to many of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren who now live in the country.
“It is a truly wonderful moment in my life to be able to call myself Israeli, a citizen of our Jewish state,” said Charlotte Roth. “Walking these streets with five generations of my family fills my heart with deep joy and strength, especially when I see Israeli soldiers and feel safety and pride where there was once fear.”
Roth was born in Czechoslovakia into what she has described as a large, close-knit family. She has often said that “family was everything,” a value that has remained central throughout her life.
In 1944, at age 14, her family was forced into a ghetto during Passover as conditions for Jews deteriorated rapidly. Weeks later, shortly before Shavuot, they were deported to Auschwitz in a cattle car. Upon arrival on the second day of Shavuot, she was separated from her mother and siblings during the selection process — the last time she saw them.
Because she knew how to sew, Roth was selected for forced labor, a skill that likely saved her life. She survived Auschwitz, a death march and imprisonment in another camp until liberation.
After the war, she returned to her childhood village and learned that none of her immediate family had survived. She also discovered that her father, who had believed days earlier that his entire family had perished, had taken his own life.
From her former life, Roth retained one possession: a ring engraved with the initials “IS,” for Ilanka Shvartz, the name she was born with before the war. She continues to wear it.
As a teenager in a Displaced Persons camp, she met her future husband. The couple married there and had their first child before immigrating to the United States. Under restrictive immigration policies at the time, she assumed a new passport and a new name.
They eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio, where they rebuilt their lives and raised four children. Today, Roth is the matriarch of nine grandchildren, 26 great-grandchildren and 11 great-great-grandchildren.
“Charlotte’s life is a testament to the extraordinary resilience of the Jewish spirit,” said Rabbi Yehoshua Fass, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Nefesh B’Nefesh. “From unimaginable darkness emerged a light that has shone for over five generations. Her Aliyah today, surrounded by her family in the Jewish homeland, is profoundly moving and represents courage, renewal, and the enduring triumph of our nation. We are deeply privileged to share in this remarkable moment.”
Her aliyah ceremony in Tel Aviv brought together her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren — five generations standing together in what she described as a moment of safety and pride in the Jewish state.
At 96, Roth’s aliyah marks not only a personal milestone, but a symbolic moment of continuity: a Holocaust survivor who once arrived at Auschwitz alone now rooted among five generations in Israel.
Written in collaboration with NBN
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