Every week, her father, Vladislav, visited her white grave and placed red roses on it, until he decided to commit suicide at age 48.
By Rachel Avraham
Sofia Bongart was a young joyful woman who loved red roses, the Jerusalem Post reported. According to the report, she once told her family: “After I die, make me a white grave and bring me a red rose.” On October 7, 2023, she traveled to the Nova Music Festival with a friend and never returned. She was brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists. Every week, her father, Vladislav, visited her white grave and placed red roses on it, until he decided to commit suicide at age 48.
Now, the Jerusalem Post reports that they are both survived by Anna, his wife, and their younger daughter, Evelina. According to the report, Vladislav and Anna immigrated to Israel from Ukraine in 2006 with Sofia, who was four at the time. They arrived in Karmiel and started building their new life as immigrants. In the Galilee, 13 years ago, their second daughter, Evelina, was born.
“Vladislav’s dream was for us to have our own apartment so the girls would have their own space, something to hold onto after we were no longer here,” Anna told the Jerusalem Post. The young couple worked hard, saved every shekel, and eventually bought an apartment. This family had a wonderful life, until October 7, 2023.
Sofia’s closest childhood friend was Liraz Nissan, with whom she spent much of her time, the Jerusalem Post reported. As the weekend of Simchat Torah approached, they decided to go to a party. According to the report, they debated between an event at the Kinneret and the Nova music festival, and unfortunately decided to go to the Nova Music Festival, where they both would be brutally murdered.
“Until that day, everything was great. We knew that moving to Israel was a good decision,” Anna said to the Jerusalem Post. But on October 7, everything collapsed. “We put on a mask and carried our pain, but Vladislav never shared what he was going through,” she said. According to the Jerusalem Post, each morning, he went to work and came home in the afternoon, and twice a week, he visited the cemetery with red roses. “At work, he never mentioned that his daughter had been murdered. He didn’t want people looking at him with pity. He refused help and was consumed from within. But I never feared he would harm himself,” Anna said. However, after he lost an uncle that he was close to, he did the unimaginable and committed suicide.
Vladislav is not the first person affected by the October 7 massacre to commit suicide. Last October, Shirel Golan, a survivor of the Nova Music Festival massacre, decided to commit suicide at age 22 on her birthday. After October 7, “people are unusually suicidal. There are many suicides,” director of the Lotem Center for Treatment of Sexual Trauma at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Dr. Tzvia Zeligman, told I24 News.
“We treat the victims of October 7 and all the victims of the war. Women, men, children. There is an expectation to gather numbers, testimonies and information from all kinds of sources. The hospitals were asked ‘Were they attacked or were they not attacked?’ We won’t know for years. People report sexual abuse after decades,” Dr. Zeligman testified. “They continue to live life as if it’s nothing, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t destroy their lives, or that of their children and their environment,” she explained. In extreme causes, the trauma can cause some to become suicidal.
