Maty Grunberg

„After the war my mother always used to show me photographs but you know, as a child if you don´t have memories of your uncles or aunts, you kind of never ask. Also what was important, coming to Israel as a child, I remember my personal experience. I wanted to become very quickly Israeli, to learn the language, to become proud young Israeli who has nothing to do with the background of holocaust or the sadness of broken people who came out of the holocaust.“

„What was special about that period, that people came out of the ship on a floor of the port and everybody was lying down kissing the ground. As a child, I was so impressed why are people kissing the ground. You know I couldn´t understand that. Then a guy came dressed all in rubber cloth and sprayed DDT on all of us. I remember I couldn´t understand why everybody looked like ghost with the white powder on themself. Then, we were put on lorries, everybody was standig on the lorries, not sitting, and I pushed myself in the front of the lorry and we were driwing all the road to the south of Israel. What I remember very vividly on that particular journey it was the strong smell, scent of oranges in the air. I looked back and saw everybody in the big lorry, standing people in the lorry were crying. So I always associate the smell of oranges with the cry.“

„In 1948, what left of Macedonian Jewish people, we immigrated to Israel. There were 3600 Jews who arrived on two ships from Zadar, this is a part of Adriatic coast, to Israel. What was special about this trip, that I remember vividly, first of all, the sea was very rough. It was the month of December, and people who sat and lived in the low part of the ship have been sick and womit and I refused to be down. So I have always been on the top part of the ship, you know, the fresh wind and rouhg see, I´d loved it.“

„I was asked three years ago to go to Macedonia to the place called Monastir Bitola to restore an old Jewish cemetery. What is special about this Jewish cemetery: when I arrived there I was shocked by the size of it. The cemetery I think was created around 16th century or late 15th century. As an artist, my proposal was to the group of five architects from the city of Bitola that we have to create a memorial park, because nobody is going to come and visit an old cemetery, nobody is interested in visiting cemetery. All Europe is full of cemeteries that nobody actually goes there. So I proposed five pieces of art to create a memorial park and to restore and open the cemetery to the general public. So they can visit and it can be a really special place. Otherwise, restoring a cemetery doesn´t go to create visitors. They all agreed with me and the foreign office also got involved with that, Bar Ilan university got involved, the Israeli agriculture fund, Keren Kayemet, got involved, and suddenly all sorts of people got involved, even a group of German Christian people from the city of Baden-Baden. The whole community took on themselves to restore the cemetery. Everything was done volontary, including my work is volontary.“

„The Christian family really took the risk hiding us in the flour mill. I was born in a date that a week later, the Jews of Macedonia were taken to Skopje, Monopol, and from Monopol they were taken to Treblinka. 98 percent as far as I know from the records never came back. We survived and every time when a German used to pass through the main road, via Skopje, from Bulgaria, via Skopje, or from Greece, via Skopje, my father used to put me in an attic with my grandmother. I was asked, almost as a baby, two or theree, I remember, to be very quiet and not to make any noise.“