Shai (‘Gift’ in Hebrew) Pivshowitz was born in Ashmyany, Poland to our mother, Haya, and her husband, Samuel, who was brutally murdered in a Gestapo synagogue raid a few months prior to Shai’s birth. We have no information regarding Shai, we know only his place of birth and that he had died in the Holocaust at the tender age of three.
The deaths of her husband and son left our mother to bravely face the horrors of the Holocaust by herself. Somehow, she managed to survive, marry our father, Joseph Shapira (a Partisan Holocaust survivour himself), and start a new family in Israel.
It was only after her passing, at the ripe old age of 94, that we first heard the story of our mother’s tremendous loss and learned that we had a brother. All efforts to find information regarding our late brother resulted in a single document; a memorial citizenship witness statement issued for Samuel by his nephew at Yad Vashem – the world center for documentation, research, education and commemoration of the Holocaust.
The only mention of Shai is of his death at age three in Vilna.
We continue searching for answers to our many questions; how did Shai look like? Were his eyes brown like ours – his two younger siblings? When is his birthday? How did his short life come to an end? Was he scared? Did he feel any pain? And while we search, we can’t help but think of the future Shai would have had if it wasn’t taken from him by the Nazis, the person he could have become, the things he could have achieved.
As a way to memorialize Shai – a beloved son, brother and uncle, the Shapira family decided to launch ShaiFund and to dedicate our efforts to helping the young beat obstacles and reach self-fulfillment. Our goal is to help as many young individuals live up to their full potential and establish a pay-it-forward mechanism, so that these young adults go on to help others.