Sonia Furman and husband visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community June 27. They live in Israel where Sonia’s husband served in the military as an airplane pilot.

Her mother Fryda was born in Panevėžys in 1919 and went to Memel/Klaipėda at the age of 14 for training for repatriation to Palestine. According to Israel statistics, 9.950 Jews from Lithuania did repatriate, but Fryda wasn’t one of them. She came back from the training course and moved to Šiauliai where she established a women’s clothing store. She married Yankel Furman from Šaukėnai in 1940 after the latter completed Lithuanian military service.

In August of 1941 the Šiauliai ghetto was established and Yankel and Fryda were imprisoned there. Sonia’s uncle Hershon was born in that ghetto in 1942 and was then murdered in the Kinder Aktion there.

Sonia’s father was sent to Dachau and her mother to Stutthof. They survived and both returned to Šiauliai. They later moved to Vilnius where Sonia and her brothers were born and raised. Sonia finished Vilnius University in 1972 and the whole family immigrated to Israel where she continued her education at Tel Aviv University.

Sonia raised a healthy and happy family in Israel and has three children and three grandchildren now.

The couple signed the guest book at the Panevėžys Jewish Community and chairman Gennady Kofman showed them surviving Jewish heritage sites in the city. They also visited the new Stasys Museum and said they liked it.