Ofelia Roitman

On October 7, amidst the assault on Kibbutz Nir Oz by Hamas terrorists, Ofelia Roitman, a 77-year-old Argentinian-born educator and long-time resident of the kibbutz, found her life turned upside down. Her early morning tranquility was shattered by incoming rockets, leading her to seek shelter in her home's safe room. With her husband recuperating from surgery in the hospital, Ofelia was home alone. Her final text that morning was to her daughter Natalie Madmon at 9:37: “They are here, please please.”

The violence of her capture left her with physical injuries, including a gunshot wound to her arm, treated minimally by her captors with a makeshift tourniquet using a shoelace. Roitman's subsequent transportation to Gaza, thrown face down in a tractor amidst the chaos, marked the beginning of a 46-day ordeal of isolation and deprivation.

Throughout her captivity, Roitman faced conditions reminiscent of historical atrocities, with scant food supplies prompting her to hoard pieces of pita bread.. The lack of basic amenities, compounded by the isolation in an apartment with almost no contact with the outside world, led her to fear for her sanity. Her resolve to maintain her mental fortitude led her to pace the apartment and eventually find solace in writing, mirroring Anne Frank's legacy of documenting life in hiding, with Ofelia recording her experience in Spanish.

The sound of Hamas rockets firing from tunnels beneath her and the subsequent celebrations of their impacts were a constant source of distress, punctuated only by the distant hope brought by the sound of Israeli planes. Roitman's eventual release, part of a temporary ceasefire deal, and her reunion with neighbors from Nir Oz, marked the end of her physical captivity but the beginning of a long emotional and psychological recovery process.