This is my grandmother Rahela Navon, and her daughter-in-law, Serina Navon. The picture was taken some time before World War Two in Pristina.
Sarina Navon was the wife of Jeshua Navon and mother of Rahela, Jakov, Netika and Kutiel. She, her husband and children moved to Israel after the war where she lived until her death. Her children and grandchildren still reside in Israel.
The first Germans arrived in Pristina in April, 1941. The Albanians liked the Germans. They came down from villages to welcome them and kiss their boots. Right after the Germans came, the Jews were ordered to wear a yellow band with the word Jude, and form a brigade of 200 adults from Kosovo to work at the stone pit. When the Nazis first rounded up the Jews in Pristina, they came with a truck to our house and took away everything from us, 10 kilos of gold, family jewelry which we had had for four generations. Five bags were all that were left, one each for my father, mother, sister, grandfather and me. They made our father carry all of the family's belongings out of the house onto trucks, the whole time beating him on the spine. His back never recovered from these beatings and he never regained his strength. Rukula and our mother were both operated on in 1946 for respiratory problems that developed during the war.
We thought that the Germans wouldn't take my grandfather as he was old, so we gave him everything we had. But my grandfather was taken to prison immediately and killed. Soon after grandfather was murdered, my grandmother died of sorrow and lack of medicine.