Roth

October 29, 2002 -- One of those killed in the Sbarro Pizzeria bombing was Malkie Roth. Her parents, Arnold and Frimet, sat down with Ron Claiborne to talk about the effects of suicide bombings. This is a partial transcript of that conversation:

Ron Claiborne: Mr. Roth, tell me about your daughter. What was she like?

Arnold Roth: Well Malkie was a girl full of energy and full of love. She was very involved in helping other people particularly involved in working with children with special disabilities. She loved people, people responded well to her. She was very popular. Not the greatest student on earth because there was never enough time for her to go and do her schoolwork because she was doing so many other things: Wonderful musician- classical flutist. Special girl, lovely personality.

Ron Claiborne: This latest wave of suicide bombings has been going on for awhile now, was this something that you and the family talked about?

Arnold Roth: I think like all Israeli families, the idea that terrorism might strike us was really unthinkable. We tell the kids to always pick the safer route, but there is a big difference between that and confronting the reality of something that your mind simply can't embrace. It's impossible to think about what actually happened to us.

Ron Claiborne: You remember that day I assume very clearly. Malkie was where that morning?

Arnold Roth: I can tell you exactly because it is engraved in my memory. At about two o'clock my wife called me in the office and said that, "CNN was on television and that there was a report of an explosion in downtown Jerusalem." She immediately called each of the kids using cell phones- couldn't reach three of them. Called me in a very bad state, told me what had happened. Some time went by and the other kids checked in, Malkie didn't. We then were involved each of us separately in searching everywhere: going to the hospitals. But it wasn't until twelve hours later at two in the morning that we found Malkie. Our sons went down to Tel Aviv and identified her body.