Description

SLO: Rachel Rotem Atijas se je rodila leta 1929 v Zagrebu. Rodila se je v sefardski družini. Sefardi so Judje španskega in portugalskega rodu, ki so se ob koncu 15. stoletja po izgonu z Iberskega polotoka razširili po vsej severni Afriki, Južni Ameriki, Italiji, Holandiji in Otomanskem cesarstvu, kjer so se naselili tudi Rachelini sorodniki.

Imela je srečo, da je s skupino otrok pravočasno zapustila okupirano Jugoslavijo. Skupina otrok je bila rešena iz pekla smrti in je februarja 1943 prispela na območje današnjega Izraela. Tam je bila Rachelina prva nastanitev v kibucu ShaarHaamakim, kjer se je zbližala s svojim kasnejšim možem Mošejem, ki se je prav tako rešil smrti.

Rachel je edina iz svoje družine, ki je preživela holokavst. Zdaj pa ima njena velika družina močne rodovne korenine. Namreč kmalu bo postala prababica že desetič.

V pogovoru kakor tudi v njeni avtobiografski knjigi človek začuti sentimentalno dušo starodavne Španije. Njen materni jezik je ladino, judovsko-španski jezik, ki se je po izgonih iz Španije razvil med pregnanimi Judi.

Rachel je ena izmed zadnjih pred drugo svetovno vojno rojenih Sefardov z območja Balkanskega polotoka. Za njih je še posebej značilno zapisovanje zgodb, podatkov in izdajanje knjig. V svoji knjigi nazorno opisuje svoje prednike, družino in domače okolje, slovo od matere, potovanje v neznano, dobre ljudi ki jih je srečala na poti, o začetkih v kibucu, srečanje z bratoma, za katera ni vedela, da ju ima, in o tem, kako se njeno življenje odvija danes. Knjiga, ki je v angleščini izšla v letu, ko Rachel praznuje devetdeset let, je kronika za njene otroke, spomin na njeno v holokavstu umorjeno družino in izjemna zanimivost za tiste, ki jih zanima judovstvo in predvsem sefardi.

Uredil: Bojan Zadravec

Prevod: Thomas Ackerman (iz hebrejščine v angleščino)

ANG: Rachel Rotem Atijas was born in a Sephardic family in 1929 in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, which was then part of Yugoslavia. The Sephardi Jews are a Jewish ethnic division, originally from Spain and Portugal, who, following their exile from the Iberian Peninsula, established communities throughout North Africa, South America, Italy, the Netherlands and the Ottoman Empire where Rachel’s relatives settled.

Rachel was fortunate enough to leave the occupied Yugoslavia in time with a group of children and, in doing so, escaped certain death. She arrived in the territory of today’s Israel in February 1943, where she first lived in the Shaar Ha’amakim kibbutz. There she met her future husband, Moshe, who also fled from Europe.

Although Rachel was the only one of her family who survived the Holocaust, today, she is the matriarch of a large family as she is about to become a great grandmother for the tenth time.

Talking to Rachel or reading her autobiographical book, you feel the sentimental soul of ancient Spain. Her mother tongue is Ladino, a Judaeo-Spanish language that developed among Jews expelled from Spain.

Rachel is one of the last Sephardi Jews born on the Balkan Peninsula prior to World War II, who are especially known to record stories, data and publish books. In her book, Rachel graphically describes her ancestors, family, perception of the world, the death of her mother, the journey into the unknown, the good people she met in her life, her beginnings in the kibbutz, the meeting with her two brothers she did not know existed and her life today. The book published in English in the year of Rachel’s ninetieth birthday is a chronicle written for her children, a testament to her family murdered in the Holocaust and essential reading for all those interested in Judaism and especially the Sephardi Jews.

Afterword by: dr. Bojan Zadravec

Translated by: Thomas Ackerman (from hebrew to english)

Rachel Rotem Atijas Knjige Avtobiografije, življenjepisi The life story of a Sephardi Jew