David Soakell visits Yad Vashem

Read this moving testimony from CFI's David Soakell who is currently in Israel with some of our area reps.

"Early in the morning I'm going to Ariel in Samaria, Israel to visit Holocaust survivors. Today I visited the children’s memorial at Yad Vashem to remember the one and a half million children murdered in the Holocaust. A voice in the background recites the names, the ages and the places of origin of some of the children. 

"At the 12th name she says: Baruch Soakell (originally spelt Sokel). When Dad was alive he always told us that our name had been changed. I discovered through much research that it is a Polish/Russian Jewish name spelt Sokel. I was shaken as I thought of the sheer horror that these young children would have faced as they confronted evil Nazi forces they hardly understood. 

"A woman who stood nearby walked away, wiping the tears streaming down her eyes. I have cried more than my fair share but today I was simply shaking at hearing this name. Was this Soakell a family member?"