Israel’s first fatality from COVID-19 was an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor.
Arie Even died on Friday night after contracting the flu-like coronavirus, according to the Los Angeles Times. Even was born in 1932 as George Steiner into a family of affluent Hungarians.
“Dad was an old-school gentleman,” his daughter Ofra said. “He grew up very well-to-do.”
She said that her father was able to hide in a countryside basement during the Holocaust to avoid being captured by Nazis and sent to a concentration camp. Nazis killed Even’s maternal grandparents in Budapest, but his parents, despite being forced into a work camp, survived, and he moved to Israel at 17 years old.
Ofra said her father only began to open up about his experiences during World War II in the later years of his life.
“He didn’t speak about the Holocaust. He didn’t discuss it with us,” she recalled. “Only in the last few years, I’d spend Holocaust Day with him, and we began talking about it.”
His family said he instilled strong values in them growing up.
“He believed profoundly in equality, in civil rights,” another daughter Yael said. “He believed that this land belonged to all of its citizens.”
“Humanism was in his DNA,” Ofra said.
An exception to Israel’s strict national lockdown was made so that Even could be buried Saturday night, with pallbearers appearing in protective biohazard gear. The burial was carried out by members of the Jerusalem burial society.
Israel has seen more than 1,200 cases of the coronavirus, 37 recoveries, and one death, according to the latest reading by the Johns Hopkins University tracker. Worldwide, there have been more than 372,000 cases of COVID-19, about 100,000 recoveries, and at least 16,300 deaths.