Holocaust survivor Shoshana Ovitz, whose birthday celebration with about 400 of her descendants at the Western Wall in 2019 went viral, passed away on Sunday at the age of 105.
She survived Auschwitz after witnessing her mother being handed over to Josef Mengele, the infamous “Angel of Death” Nazi doctor known for his cruel experiments on prisoners. Her father also died in the Holocaust.
After the liberation of Auschwitz, Shoshana met Dov Ovitz, a cousin of hers whose wife and four daughters had perished in the Holocaust. They married soon after and lived in Austria before moving to Haifa, where they had four children together.
“Only during the celebration did we understand how important she is,” Ovitz’s eldest granddaughter, Panini Friedman, was quoted by Walla as saying at the time of the 2019 Western Wall event. “We all had tears in our eyes. It was very moving.”
Even with 400 people there, not all of the family could make it,” she said. “We’re missing about 10% of them.”
Ovitz took the opportunity to bless all her family together and said she merited surviving the Holocaust after honoring her parents, one of the most important commandments in Judaism.