Dafna Garkovich was a quality inspector on weekdays and an avid raver on weekends. On October 7, she remained in the arms of her partner, Iván Illarramendi

Today as well Dafna Garkovich is dead. She was born as Pamela in Chile, to Cecilia and Danny, and was their only daughter. When she was eight years old, the family emigrated to Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak in the south of Israel. Dafna was exceptionally creative, designed sets for ceremonies, and sang in them, too. She also made her own clothes. Because Dafna knew her way around a pair of scissors even as a kid, the kibbutz’s elderly women queued up for her haircuts.

On Saturday, October 7, Dafna could hear footsteps and people speaking Arabic. She texted her father that eventually “they’ll come and open my door”

She was beloved for her radiant, bold spirit. “I remember only good things about you”, wrote Yifat Ben Yosef, a classmate. “You always knew how to express your opinion to me, even when you knew I wouldn’t necessarily agree. You accepted me as I am”. After high school, the family moved to Kibbutz Kisufim. When Dafna finished her military service, she travelled through America and Asia, returned briefly to Israel and helped her father run the Senate Hall at Ben-Gurion University, then went off to work at the selling carts in Spain. In Bilbao, she met Iván Illarramendi César. They fell in love and married quickly, so that Iván’s father, who was on his deathbed, could attend the ceremony.

They returned to Kisufim. Dafna worked at the Polysack factory as a highly regarded supervisor in the quality-control lab. Iván worked at the cowshed. He loved the cows, and they returned his affection. Later, he moved to work in nearby Kibbutz Be’eri, first in the print shop, then in the chadar ochel, the communal dining hall – he preferred people over machines.

Beyond all that, music festivals, raves, and outdoor parties were central to their world. In their death they left an entire community shattered.

On Saturday, October 7, Dafna and Iván locked themselves in the safe room. At nine in the morning, Dafna texted her father, Danny, the commander of firefighting and rescue units for all the Israeli settlements surrounding Gaza, that she could hear footsteps and people speaking Arabic, and that eventually “they’ll come and open my door”. There were no military forces available, and Danny frantically tried to direct the local emergency squad to Dafna’s house. At one minute past ten in the morning, he texted her that the area still wasn’t secure and not to leave the safe room. Dafna replied with two emojis. That was the last sign of life from her.

Terrorists burned Dafna and Iván’s house to the ground. At first, they were thought to have been abducted. Military and police teams searching for remains found no trace. Only when Danny sent his skilled firefighters to the scene did they locate two small mounds of ash, side by side. Inside they found a tooth with a bit of flesh on it, a piece of bone, and something glinting. Danny recognized it as the small earring that had adorned Dafna’s right nostril and understood immediately: “They were murdered and burned while hugging each other”. It took the forensic institute another full month to complete the identification, and then the Rabbinate created difficulties about burying Dafna Garkovich, forty-seven, and Iván Illarramendi, forty-six, together. It was a confrontation that nearly reached the Supreme Court, and Danny describes it in heartbreaking testimony in the “Seven Hundred and Ten” project.

Two months before she was murdered, Dafna posted on Facebook the results of a popular online quiz: you fill in some personal details and the algorithm predicts which spirit animal represents your soul. It came out panther. “Dafna is a rare creature who must not be lost in life”, it said, right in the first sentence.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)