Margalit Katz Harel papers

Margalit Katz Harel was born on March 21, 1931 as Margit Katz in Putila, Romania (Putyla, Ukraine). Her father, Shlomo Salomon Katz, was a wood merchant and her mother, Mitzi Noemi Simche Katz, was a housewife. The family lived in Chernivtsi, Ukraine at Strada Constanze 5c and spoke German at home.

In June 1940 the Bessarabia and northern Bukowina regions were transferred by Romania to the USSR. The communist authorities confiscated the family business. In June 1941 Germany invaded the USSR and on September 15, 1941 Romanian prime minister Ion Antonescu ordered around 150,000 Jews to be deported to Transnistria. In November 1941 the extended Katz and Simche families were deported to Mogilev (Belarus). Through bribes, the families were allowed to remain in the Mogilev ghetto. Mitzi Katz was able to sneak out of the ghetto to sell hers and others’ valuables for food. In 1943 both of Margit’s paternal grandparents, Tziril and Wolf Katz, and her maternal grandmother, Yehudit Bartfeld Simche, perished in the Mogilev ghetto.

In the spring of 1944 the Soviet Red Army liberated Mogilev and conscripted them as forced-laborers. Margit, her maternal grandfather Chaim Simche, and her parents fled to Bucharest. They had hoped to immigrate to Palestine, but were unable to do so. Margit started to attend a Jewish, learned Hebrew, and joined “Hanoar Ha’tzioni” Zionist youth organization. Salomon Katz, who contracted tuberculosis in the Mogilev ghetto, died in 1946. In December 1947 the family boarded SS “Pancrescent” and sailed towards Palestine. The British intercepted the ship and the family was deported to Cyprus. In July 1948 Margit, her mother, and her maternal grandfather arrived in Haifa, Israel. On October 21, 1952 Margit married Shimon Sztrenk, a survivor from Lvov, Poland (Lviv, Ukraine). Their son, Shlomo was born in 1957 and their twin daughters: Ofra and Ayala were born in June 1967. Margit, now Margalit, and Shimon Harel lived in Ramat Gan, Israel.