If only the night didn't come – The story of Aliza Landau

Aliza Landau was born in 1938 in Lodz, Poland. His family – his parents, Melech and Ruth Goldman, and his brother Rishek, resided in Ruda Pabianicka, a suburb of the city. After the Germans entered Poland, her parents decided that Aliza's father would go into hiding. Aliza, her mother and her brother were sent to the Lodz ghetto, but were able to escape and join her father soon after. It is the start of four years of wandering for the family across Poland, hiding in different places, with the help of Polish peasants. The family was nearly caught several times and was forced, at one point, to flee to a nearby forest. After several days without food, his mother left the forest in search of food but did not return. Aliza's brother died of starvation and she and her father were found by a German patrol. They were taken, along with several others, to a makeshift extermination pit. Her father was killed but Aliza survived unharmed. She waited until nightfall, crawled out of the pit and fled to a nearby village. She was six years old. In the village, she was taken in by a Ukrainian couple who took care of her until the region was liberated. Her mother, who had also survived by hiding after being seriously injured, was able to find her after the war ended. They moved to Israel in 1948. Aliza married Yossi Landau and had three children. She worked as a kindergarten teacher. Today, she gives lectures on the theme of the Holocaust and accompanies delegations from the Israeli police and security forces as well as Israeli high schools to Poland.

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