The Itzkovitz Family

Eliahu Itzkovitz spent much of his childhood confined behind the walls of Romania’s Chișinău Ghetto – a place where he and other Romanian Jews were held prisoner by their government. The ghetto’s inhabitants were routinely robbed, beaten, raped, and even killed by guards, police, and civilians emboldened by the country’s anti-Semitic leaders.

When 10-year-old Eliahu witnessed the slaughter of his family at the hands of one particularly malicious guard, he swore revenge. Eliahu’s oath ultimately took him on a 13-year, cross-country journey that ended in a conflict-ridden Vietnamese jungle, bringing him face-to-face with a man he remembered as Stănescu.