Israel's first coronavirus victim survived Holocaust hiding in cellars
As a child in Hungary, Arie Even survived the Holocaust by taking shelter with his mother and brother after his father was sent to a notorious concentration camp.
Even’s well-connected grandfather found refuge for them in a Swiss-protected home in Budapest before they were rushed to another shelter, under the cover of night, thanks to the Swedish embassy and the efforts of the famed diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who saved tens of thousands of Jews before mysteriously disappearing. The next day, Even’s grandfather was shot and his body was dumped in the Danube River.
Later in life, Even survived multiple heart attacks, surgeries and even a brush with a cholera epidemic during a family visit to Spain. But he couldn’t escape the coronavirus pandemic.
On 20 March, the 88-year-old became Israel’s first coronavirus fatality after being infected by a visiting social worker at his assisted-living facility in Jerusalem.
Despite having four children, 18 grandchildren and a great-grandchild living in Israel, Even died alone; his loved ones were forced to stay away and say goodbye over the phone.
In keeping with the Jewish practice of burying the dead quickly, his funeral was held the next day, at the end of the Sabbath. His youngest child, representing the family, was one of only a few people allowed to attend – at a distance – as he was buried by Jewish religious authorities wearing biohazard suits.
With Israel in virtual lockdown, his family was deprived of a proper sitting of shiva, the Jewish week of mourning in which families host open houses for relatives and friends to offer their condolences.
“He was a strong man and he overcame the hardships of the Holocaust,” said his daughter Yael, expressing frustration at how he and others in the retirement home were exposed. “He lived a full life. It’s just a shame he had to go this way.”
He was born George Steiner, to a wealthy Hungarian Jewish family, but their lives were turned upside down by Nazi rule. His father was sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1941. When Germany occupied Hungary in 1944, Even, his mother and brother went into hiding for nearly a year, sometimes in bales of hay and underground cellars.
After the war, aged 17, he moved to Israel, joined a kibbutz and was then drafted into the military as an aircraft technician. His parents, who also survived the war, fled Hungary after the Soviet invasion in 1956 and later joined him in Israel.
His wife, Yona, a distant relative of the Israeli president Reuven Rivlin, died in 2012. She was a career diplomat and he followed her to India, Japan, Germany, France and elsewhere while maintaining his own career as a customs officer.
Later in life he recorded video testimony for the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial at the request of his children. He recalled the day Budapest was liberated by Russian troops who threw loaves of bread from their trucks. “Since then, I’m sympathetic to the Russians,” he said with a smirk.
The eldest of his four children, Yaacov, 62, described a “classy” gentleman who studied Latin and dreamed of becoming a doctor. He said his father was lucid until the end, walking around with a cane and telling his children to plan a big party for his 90th.
“Who knows how long he had left? Another week? A year? Five years? Whatever it was, it feels like a waste to lose him now,” he said. “It still feels like he died before his time.”