Of the 231,000 Holocaust Survivors living in Israel – 60,000 are economically needy. The Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims in Israel provides homecare to disabled Holocaust Survivors, emergency lifeline buttons, individual grants for items not covered by Israeli National Health programs and emergency funds. Severe budgetary shortfalls have all but eliminated the ability to provide individual grants for items like hearing aids, adult diapers, dentures, prescription drugs and additional nursing assistance.
Leopold Rosen was in the Stanislav ghetto. While there, he was shot in his left hand by a Nazi bullet, leaving him today with blocked blood flow and complete paralysis in his arm. He suffers from asthma, and epilepsy, takes 20 pills a day and cannot walk without assistance, frequently losing his balance and falling down. Mr. Rosen requires assistance in all but the simplest activities of daily living. He receives 9 weekly nursing hours from the Foundation, without which he could not survive. He applied for aid in funding eyeglasses, but the Foundation was forced to refuse him due to a lack of funding. Unfortunately, Leopold’s story is not unique.
HOT has made grants to help people like Leopold, paid for hundreds of life buttons and just gave the Foundation $6,500 to help them “fix up” apartments of survivors who are living in deplorable conditions. It might seem more logical to have them live in a group home setting but studies show that removing them from the “safety” of their HOME and putting them in a group home brings back memories of living in the camps and therefore agencies helping survivors in both the United States and in Israel have determined that whatever the cost, they should be permitted to “age in place.”
Funds are needed to repair hundreds of apartments (generally around $400 for paint; $1,000 to repair plumbing and electricity; $1,300 for new appliances) and there are still thousands of survivors who do not have “emergency lifeline buttons” that are rented at $10 per month, or $120 a year ($1,200 for 10 survivors; $12,000 for 100 survivors. Please consider designating your contributions to help these people whose crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.