NEW YORK — Seven Children were killed when a fire ripped through a brick home in a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn this past March. The seven children were buried in Jerusalem.
Gabriel Sassoon, the father, announced Sunday morning that his wife has finally returned home from hospital.
“On Friday my wife returned home, and she was glad to be home,” he stated, on the Kol B’Rama radio station. “She will continue treatments at home, she still has to go through rehabilitation so she can walk better and use her hands.”
Sassoon said “it is very difficult” for his wife to come home and that he’s fighting the urge to sink into depression.
“We are able to cry about them [his children] with love and then be happy, [instead of] crying about them and missing them and being depressed, so I and my wife are trying to make our missing them for something better, to remember the love and joy that we have. Through this, it’s possible to change the situation from something negative to something positive.”
“My wife has a lot of faith, I wonder at how she’s looking forward and looking to build up the future,” he added. “She’s very strong.”
Tha family has not returned to their scorched Brooklyn home and are staying with Sassoon’s mother’s home for the time being.
“But we go on, there is no choice not to,” he said. “We got through the holidays, through Passover and Shavuot and Lag B’Omer and Shabbat. Every day I force myself again to go through the rest of the day.”
“It’s hard to explain, but when we reached that bridge we walked through it,” he added. “You never know what will happen but God helps at the moment.”
“Thank God we have a proper perspective for the future, not looking back, instead remembering all the joy from our children; that strengthens us.”
FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said the fire started when a ‘hot plate’, left on overnight to keep food warm, malfunctioned and caught fire.
The children, ages 5 to 15 were found dead in their bedrooms. FDNY says there was no smoke detectors on the first or second floor of the home, only one in the basement.
