Cover Up?

  Following my article concerning the empty graves readers asked me
questions.  They were concerned, why (following this shocking
discovery by the Israeli media in August of 1997) no drastic
measures have ever been taken, and moreover, this Commission
nominated by the government has been closed down, after it had
worked only one weekly day, for a mere 2-3 hours (not counting
several weeks that the committee decided not to work).
 
  Part of the answer may be found, likely, in the first official
response to the results of the grave openings, as stated by Dr.
Yehuda Hiss, the head of the Forensic Institute of Medicine,
located in Abu-Kbir.  Here is a quote of Dr. Hiss, from his press
statement, on the August 16, 1997:

     "When opening a grave, one must make sure to dig to
      the depth of the grave, and in the children's burial
      plot in Kiriyat Shaul only a shallow opening of the
      graves was conducted, not as required.  Every
      forensic doctor knows that bones that have been
      buried for tens of years can move to the sides and
      to a greater depth, from a distance of tens of
      centimeters up to a few meters, from their original
      burial spot.  This is due to earth movement, and
      water penetration."

  Had Dr. Hiss missed the apparent fact, as shown in the film
broadcasted by TV-One that diggers hit a solid concrete and
therefore stopped digging.  Besides, Dr. Hiss stated:

      "It is necessary to remember, we are speaking of
       infants, and small children, with very small bones,
       and to identify them there is need to conduct a
       thorough examination of the earth clods". One of
       the witnesses to the digings said, when he read the
       article reporting Hiss's statement: "And people are
       going to believe this? Even the manager of the
       cemetery was with us! Why isn't he saying
       anything?"

  Herein excerpts from the 54-pages protocol, dated January 15,
1996.  It is Dr. Hiss's testimony presented before the official
government commission.  Dr. Hiss's described his credentials:

       "I am an expert in pathological anatomy, and an
        expert in forensic medicine, I am a senior
        lecturer in pathology and forensic medicine in
        the Hebrew University, and in the Tel-Aviv
        University".

  When asked - "...and how long have you been in the business?" -
he answered:

       "I've been a doctor for approximately 20 years, a
        forensic doctor for about 12, and have been head
        of the Forensic Institute of Medicine, named after
        Greenberg, in Abu-Kbir, for seven years".

  Apparently, Dr. Hiss had given his opinion previously also to the
Shalgi committee, the one acted before the Cohen committee.  The
State attorney, Drora Nachmani-Roth asked:

       "Yes, now, your opinion to the Shalgi committee,
        was, I will read it to you, just a moment, it is
        written for Dr. Shalgi, the committee for finding
        the missing children, the population listing in
        the office of interior, it is written by you on
        the 9th of December, 1991, and its contents state:
 
       'I confirm the receipt of your letter on the topic
        from November 24, 1991, the bones and bone parts
        of infants and young children that are mentioned
        in your letter will survive after tens and
        hundreds of years, the chance of locating them in
        their burial place is good, and since the testing
        (D.N.A., and other methods of bone identification)
        is being done by experts in identifying human
        remains, of the Forensic Institute of Medicine,
        named after Greenberg, where there are forensic
        doctors expert in human anatomy and archeology,
        and expert in identification of human remains
        which will be able to give you the adequate
        professional information.'

        Do you recognise the letter you wrote?"

  Dr. Hiss answered:

        "Yes, I recognize its content, I look at it, and
         verify the truth of what is written."

  The State attorney goes on to ask him about any other contact with
the Shalgi committee, to which she receives a negative answer.
She then asks him if he stands behind the content of the letter
he wrote, to which Hiss answers:

        "Definetely!"

  Next, Nachmani presents Dr. Hiss with the following question:

        "I would like you to make clear, perhaps even in
         detail, if there is need we will ask further
         questions, on what basis did you form this
         opinion?".

  Hiss then answered:

        "My short opinion was given based on personal and
         professional knowledge, and of course information
         from professional literature that deals with
         exhumation or removal of human remains from
         graves or various other burial sites that were
         buried there hundreds and even thousands of
         years ago.

         In cases of the burying of bodies of infants,
         children or adults in different places depends,
         of course, on the temperature, climate, and soil
         conditions.  In the place of a burial, the bodies
         go through a process of decay and, as a result,
         the soft tissue disappears, and what survives are
         the bones, which are the hard parts, or tissue,
         in our body, and they include the bones of the
         skeleton and teeth, and these remains survive for
         hundreds of years.

         Of course there are exceptional cases where
         either because of the conditions of very warm
         earth - like the earth in areas with volcanic
         activity and lava - and high heat activity due to
         fire, or other reasons, that even these remains
         can disappear, but in a case that the earth
         conditions are normal, and there are no floods,
         not that they ruin the bones, just move them from
         one place to another - it is usually possible
         after tens and hundreds of years to locate and
         identify, by certain scale, the remains that are
         left from bodies that were buried".
 
  The protocol goes on for a while, getting into details about
identifying the remains found, which is currently irrelevant in
my opinion (Y.M).  What is relevant, however, is the fact that the
testimony of Dr. Hiss was given in January of 1996, only a short
time after the entire matter was getting out to the media, due to
the surprising testimony of Ms. Sonia Millstein, who had been a
nurse in the Ein-Shemer immigration camp, in front of the
official committee, around the middle of October, 1995.

  This matter was raised in the weekend edition of the "Yediot
Acharonot" newspaper, on October 20, by the journalist Edna
Adato.  Sonia Millstein was quoted there:

        "I saw how the babies were sent in ambulances,
         in packages, and with no written records being
         taken".

  Sonia Millstein is a kibbutz resident, and was 86 at the time she
gave this testimony.  Mr. Avner Farhi brought this witness to the
stand.  Her testimony was given, again, in Bet-Agron, the seat of
the official committee on this matter.  The "Yediot Acharonot"
article reported that "For many hours, Millstein was questioned by
Drora Nachmani, the State attorney.  She tended to shake herself
clean of responsibility, by claiming she didn't know or
didn't remember."  She was also quoted saying:

        "I was only in charge of the equipment in the
         clinics and the staff. I did not meet with the
         human material in the camps".

  The article also reports that Millstein claimed she did not even
hear, back then, of parents that lost their children.  Another
amazing quote of hers was:

        "The Yemenite mothers were bewildered and
         confused. They could not keep track of their
         children. I, as a European mother, would go and
         ask questions, take notes, and know where my
         son was. They were not able to do this".

  She was asked, by the State attorney:

        "Why didn't you make sure that would be done for
         them?",

to which Millstein answered:

        "I had other worries back then. If I discovered
         that, after forty years, my child was alive, I
         would feel happy. I woud be pleased that my child
         received a good education in a good family. I am
         no racist. On the contrary".

  The truth of that statement should, of course, be determined by
the reader.

  This testimony given in front of the committee took a very
interesting turn when Haim Giat, a 53 year old man, who was in
the Ein-Shemer immigration camp too, stood up and testified.
He recalled a story, in a voice choked by tears, that he
remembered Sonia Millstein from the Ein-Shemer camp.  He told he
was only 6 years old, when his cousin, an infant only months old,
was taken to the clinic.  When Millstein told the child's parents
that the child was dead, they began wrecking havoc in the clinic,
and making much noise.  Then, to quote Giat,

        "Millstein walked into the room next door and
         brought the baby back to his parents, alive
         and well".

Millstein angrily responded "I swear, that's a lie!".
 
  Another interesting testimony presented to this
committee, by the State attorney, was a quotation from the
testimony of Roza Kotzinski, who had been a nurse during that
period of time, in the nursing room of camp A in
Ein-Shemer, and testified to the committee later on, on
the October 25, 1995.  She said:

        "I would take two or three babies in an ambulance
         to the Afula Hospital. We would leave healthy
         babies there. The next day I would ask: where are
         the babies? And their would tell me they are
         gone, dead. What do they mean died? But they were
         healthy, they had no sickness! Today, when people
         say they died, it's a lie. They were sold for
         adoption. Mostly in the United States...".
 
  At this point, Millstein again got angry, and said:

        "Roza Kotzinski's a liar!
         Maybe they brainwashed her."

  One comment heard, by one of the Yemenite fathers witnessing this
testimony was

        "Maybe they brainwashed Sonia".

  At the end of this testimony State attorney Nachmani showed Millstein
a list of healthy children that were present back then in a few of
the hospitals in Israel, and later were said to be dead.
Millstein's final reaction was:

        "I am tired of your questions.  They are not
         relevant to me.  I am already 86 years old.
         I'm allowed to forget....".

  Sonia Millstein says she's allowed to forget. However, thousands
of Jewish families bear a pain which the Sonia Millsteins in
Israel and abroad have made impossible to forget.

  In the next article in this series, you will read more about how
the issue is being kept out of the public eye, and of one of the
people responsible for the sale of children in the United States.

© Yechiel Mann,
Eshhar, Israel