September 21st, 2023 – Prayers of comfort for Aaron Molotkovski, the Chairman of the Ghetto survivor Zicaron Foundation (“The Memory”), who recently lost his beloved wife Claudia. She was 91 years old. On top of losing his precious wife, he is also currently recovering from Covid-19.
Claudia Molotkovsky sadly passed away at the beginning of September. She was the dear wife of Aron Molotkovsky, the Chairman of Amutat Zicaron in Ashdod, and one of the first Holocaust survivor leaders that Helping Hand Coalition has been very close with since its beginning.
During our home visit to him in Ashdod, he told us that he is now 92 years old and that he had known his wife Claudia since they were 6 years old. They were only half a year apart in age, and he said that as little kids they use to “pretend play” to be mom & dad of Claudia’s pretend baby dolls and carry the baby around in a pretend baby carriage.
Then in 1941, at the age of 10, the war had reached their part or Ukraine (not far from Odessa) and they were each sent to different places. He was sent to a ghetto and she was deported elsewhere.
After the war had ended, he ended up surviving with his family and being located around 200 km from Kiev.
One day he happened to go to a store and recognized the sales lady. She was Claudia’s mother. For 15 minutes he was just asking for prices of different items at the store until Claudia’s mother finally said: “Are you going to buy anything at all”? Aron responded with: “Don’t you recognize me? It’s me, Aaron.”
She was happy to see him alive and well and told him to return later so that he can meet Claudia. Aron and Claudia met later that evening and continued their friendship that turned into a marriage at the age of 19.
They then moved to Kiev and lived there for decades.
Aron then proceeded to tell of the difficulties they endured in Ukraine throughout their lives, including the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, the massive subsequent restrictions and lock-downs, which lasted for many years, the pogroms against Jews in Kiev that they suffered through in the late 80s and then how they left Ukraine to make Aliyah in 1990, once the USSR had collapsed.
(He also mentioned that they almost moved to the USA before their plans changed in mid transit and they decided to move to Israel instead!)
Needless to say, Claudia Molotkovsky lived a very full life together with Aron, leaving behind many children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren in Israel and will be very, very missed. And Aron is going through a very difficult period right now as he has just lost his life long partner.
