Holocaust Survivor Testimony: Saadia Bahat

Saadia Bahat lit one of six torches at the State Opening Ceremony of Holocaust Remembrance Day at Yad Vashem in 2026. Saadia Bahat was born in 1928 in Alytus, Lithuania, to Mendl and Jenia Bokshitzki. Mendl was a lawyer, and he established and ran the local volunteer police force and fire brigade. He was also a member of the city council and was the municipal secretary, receiving awards for his civic service. Jenia was a teacher who was also involved in community life. In 1939, the family moved to Vilna. The Germans invaded in June 1941, and the family was expelled to the Vilna ghetto in September of that year. Mendel was murdered in one of the Aktionen. In September 1943, the Germans demanded volunteers to work in camps in Estonia. When Saadia heard bombing, he assumed that the Germans were bombarding the ghetto due to the lack of volunteers. To try and stop this course of action, he volunteered and parted from his mother, who, some time later, was also murdered. In Estonia, Saadia passed through six camps and was conscripted to forced labor, chopping trees and laying railway tracks. The work was sometimes carried out in swamps, in freezing temperatures without adequate clothing, and under starvation conditions that led to the deaths of many. Numerous prisoners were shot during the march from the camps to the labor sites. When Saadia’s shoes fell apart, he walked barefoot in the snow. Saadia survived several selections in the camps in Estonia. For two short periods, he carved walking sticks for the Germans and received extra bread in return. Fortunately for him, he was transferred by boat to the Stutthof concentration camp, where he was placed in a children’s barracks. All the children except for Saadia and six others were sent to their deaths. Saadia was taken to a submarine yard and worked as a welder in submarine compartments, in cramped, airless conditions. When the Eastern Front approached, the workers were marched westward on a grueling death march to a camp near Lauenburg, Pomerania. Typhus was rampant, and Saadia also fell ill. During the death march, one of the prisoners reported Saadia’s illness to the Nazis, but instead of shooting him, they left him with two other prisoners in a hut. “Suddenly we heard heavy machine-gun fire. We were sure that they were murdering the marching camp inmates and would return to kill us, but then everything went silent. We lay there dying and waited. Four days later, the door opened to reveal a Soviet soldier. We were liberated!” Saadia was hospitalized in a Soviet military hospital before slowly making his way westward. He stayed in Jewish orphanages in northern France and Marseille, and reached Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine) in February 1946. Through the Youth Aliyah, Saadia was “reborn” and enlisted in the Haganah. He volunteered in the Palmach, fought in the Harel Brigade, and was wounded in action. After the War of Independence, Saadia lived in Tel Gezer for a year, and then studied mechanical engineering in the Technion. He started working at the RAFAEL armament development authority in 1956, and in the course of his thirty-seven years there, he was the recipient of several awards, including the Israel Defense Prize. “My dedication to my work at RAFAEL became a family obligation—I couldn't look my grandchildren in the eye if I wasn’t contributing my all,” said Saadia. Saadia retired in 1993 and embarked on a second career as a sculptor, receiving prizes in Israel and abroad. Saadia and Dit, his wife of seventy years, have three children, eight grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. Torchlighters through the years: https://www.yadvashem.org/remembrance...