Dani Miran, 80, sits in the cafeteria of Beit Ariella, overlooking Hostages Square, wiping away tears. A strong, warm, and witty man, he became a rare voice of calm and reason throughout the campaign to free the hostages. The interview is repeatedly interrupted, by phone calls and passersby who stop to express their love and concern for his son. He answers everyone patiently. There's no more urgency now. Omri is home.

Video: Omri Miran reunited with his daughters at the hospital // Photo: Barak Meir, GPO

Dani was born in Iraq, immigrated to Israel, and settled in Khaltsa, which later became Kiryat Shmona. He moved to Yesud Hamaala, married, and had four children: Boaz, Nadav, Omri, and Naama. His wife died 33 years ago at the age of 46, and he raised the children alone.

He says that over the past two years he dreamed of Omri often. Some of the dreams were good, "but others were awful nightmares that left me waking up in tears, unable to even remember the dream. It happened over and over." Now the nightmare is over, and he's allowing himself to feel joy. For two years, he didn't permit himself that luxury. He didn't know if his son was eating, being punished, or being tortured.

His fears were justified. From the little Omri has shared about his time in captivity, it's clear he was punished whenever he did something that displeased his captors. One day, when it was hot, he took off his shirt. Hamas terrorists told him that shirts don't come off in their presence. They tied him up and locked him in a cage just 1.5 meters (5 feet) high. Sometimes the punishments were physical, like being kicked.

"He resisted them in many ways," Dani says proudly. For example, when the video released six months ago was filmed, the first take wasn't emotional enough for the Hamas commander, who ordered a second take. When the second attempt also didn't satisfy him, the commander personally approached Omri, cocked a pistol, and pointed it at his head, hoping to "improve his acting." Omri stared at him, knowing the terrorist wouldn't dare shoot, and said he could do what he wanted, but he wasn't doing another take. "That's Omri. The apple didn't fall far from the tree. I would have acted the same way. So would his brothers. They have their values and beliefs, and that's a good thing."

Omri told his father a bit about the conditions of his captivity, which varied depending on where he was held, he was moved frequently. "Some days he had a mattress to sleep on, others not even that. When he was above ground, he had a bed. Most of the time he was underground. He was never in danger from IDF airstrikes. He felt the tremors from the bombings, but he was never actually at risk."

Getting into character

The phone rings again, this time it's a delivery person. He's bringing tefillin for a soldier who regained consciousness after a serious injury and asked for them. Dani helped buy them. While we pause, he checks WhatsApp (1,031 unread messages), scrolls through, and finds photos of himself grilling burgers for 400 soldiers on leave from Gaza. "And I'm a vegetarian!" he laughs. As if campaigning for his son's release wasn't enough, he was everywhere, helping however he could, and he did a lot.

How is Omri doing?

"My impression is that he's still a bit euphoric. It'll take at least a year to process everything he's been through. He missed his wife, his daughters, his siblings, his aunt, and his dad. Suddenly he's seeing them all. He always believed he'd come back whole, and so did I. The day after he returned, he devoured a steak and a half. The next day, he went to the beach. I'm also walking on air. We haven't landed yet."

He recalls the morning of October 7, when he woke up early, saw rocket alerts in the south, and called Omri. His son told him they were used to rockets and not to worry. Dani went out to garden. An hour later, he saw the massacre unfolding on TV and called again. "Omri told me he could see terrorists all over the kibbutz from his kitchen window. He said he put his wife and daughters in the safe room and armed himself with two kitchen knives." During that call, Omri asked his father to stop calling and just send messages, so they could keep quiet. Dani remembered that just months earlier he had warned Omri about the risks of living so close to Gaza, and Omri had reassured him: "Dad, do you know how much military presence we have here? No one would dare come in."

"He was calm, totally logical. Every 10 minutes, I asked for an update. At 11 a.m., I messaged again, and got no reply. I wrote, 'Omri, I'm worried. Please tell me what's happening.' Nothing. At that moment, I knew I had lost four loved ones. No granddaughters. No daughter-in-law. No son. After seeing what I saw on TV, I was convinced they were all dead. The tears just came. Even if you try not to cry, that's the reaction."

Dani sat at home helpless. He considered driving four and a half hours to Nir Oz but realized he had no weapon, nothing to offer, and elite IDF units were surely already there. At 6 p.m., Lishay's mother informed him Omri had been kidnapped, while Lishay and the girls were evacuated to Kibbutz Keremim. "What a moment of joy that was. One minute you think they're all dead. The next, they're alive! I started to digest the news and thought of Gilad Shalit, who was held in Gaza for five years, and Ron Arad, who never came back from Lebanon. I wondered what the future would bring. I still didn't know Omri wasn't alone. I didn't understand the scale of the disaster."

Dani realized he couldn't help his son, but he could help his daughter-in-law and granddaughters. With Lishay's parents trapped in rocket-battered Sderot, he went to Keremim. There he found the best of Israeli solidarity: the kibbutz opened guesthouses to evacuees, cooked, cleaned, did laundry, and took care of everything. Within hours, a long table was filled with diapers, soap, shampoo, shoes, clothes, baby formula, everything someone fleeing with nothing might need.

"I got to Lishay and couldn't speak. What could I say? We cared for the kids in silence. I changed diapers, read stories to the older one. When Lishay was with them, she was the perfect mother, as if nothing had happened. As soon as they fell asleep, she went outside to cry and smoke."

On Monday morning, girls from the kibbutz took the children out for a walk. It was Dani's first chance to talk to Lishay. He asked how Omri had been kidnapped. She told him that at 11 a.m., terrorists came to their door with a local teenager, Tomer Elyaz-Arava, who was murdered later. Tomer told Omri that if he didn't open, they'd kill him. Omri opened the door, and the terrorists took all four of them to the Idan family's house.

The Mirans sat in one corner; the Idan family in another. Maayan Idan, 18, was lying on the living room floor, bleeding from a gunshot wound. At 1:30 p.m., the terrorists told the men they had to come with them or everyone would be killed. They tied them up. As Omri was being taken, Roni ran after him, shouting, "Daddy! Daddy!" Lishay held her back and told her husband, "Omri, I love you. Take care of yourself. Don't be a hero." That was the last time she saw him, until his return.

Children of life

Omri was 46 when he was kidnapped. Just after his 47th birthday, at the end of April, came the first proof of life: a video. "It was deeply emotional, like a rebirth. Until then, we'd had no word. A year later, Hamas released another video. At that time, they were also publishing horrifying footage of other hostages. We could tell Omri was outsmarting them. I saw it in his eyes. When he got back, he asked, 'Really? You noticed that?'"

Alma was 6 months old when her father was abducted. Every milestone, crawling, standing, first steps, first words, happened without him. When she said "Mommy" or "Daddy" in front of his photo, Dani's heart broke.

Roni was 2 years and 2 months old on October 7. "Omri raised her. Lishay worked long hours, so he was the main caregiver. His absence was huge for her. She asked, 'Where's Daddy?' and Lishay said he was on a trip. That seemed reasonable, we thought it would be over in two or three weeks. Later she asked again, and Lishay said Daddy got lost on his trip and people were looking for him. Eventually we told her he was in Gaza, an abstract concept."

Three months later, she said, "I remember bad people took Daddy." A few weeks after that: "Mom, is Omri still my dad? He hasn't been here for so long. Maybe we did something bad, and he left?" Six months ago, she asked the girls in her kindergarten to go with her to Gaza to bring her dad back.

Omri's name lights up on Dani's phone. He answers, his face softening. He promises to join them for Shabbat dinner. "We'll find time to eat together again and again, and never stop." When the call ends, he says that Omri was playing with Roni and got her a bit annoyed, and she told him jokingly: "If you keep this up, I'll send you back to Gaza." "Imagine that, she's four and a half."

At the end of the interview, Dani wants to thank the people of Israel. It could sound like a cliché, but not when it comes from this heroic man, so powerful, yet with tears in his eyes. "I want to thank the people of Israel. For all the support and solidarity at rallies, intersections, cities, and town squares. As everyone says: our strength is in our unity. May we return to being united, to respecting each other's opinions, and to being a people once again."

The post Held, beaten, defiant: Omri Miran's father reveals ordeal of captivity appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

The simplest approach involves declaring that famine exists in Gaza (we witnessed the photographs! Even Melania expresses horror at Gaza's situation!). The reasoning follows predictably – Israel launched military operations there, therefore Israel bears responsibility. The conclusion writes itself. Alternative interpretations or even minimal intellectual curiosity demand considerable effort while requiring acceptance of complexity. Why pursue such challenges? Existing opinions already align perfectly with established worldviews, making additional effort seem pointless.

Muhammad Zakaria Ayoub al-Mutaq appears cradled in a woman's arms, presumably his mother. His ribcage creates visible ridges beneath his skin. Carefully positioned lighting illuminates his form while leaving surrounding areas in darkness, dramatically highlighting his pronounced spinal column. A single glance at this image communicates a clear message about Gaza's famine. This interpretation opens direct pathways to broader conclusions – beyond simple hunger, this represents Israel's calculated starvation campaign against Gaza's entire population, systematically denying basic humanitarian necessities to achieve psychological breakdown. Such practices demand immediate cessation.

Muhammad's medical history, including multiple chronic genetic conditions such as cerebral palsy and hypoxemia, failed to concern editors at The New York Times. Why compromise compelling journalism and striking visuals with inconvenient facts? I cannot claim definitive knowledge about Gaza's actual conditions, though hungry individuals likely exist there (the reality, not due to Israel's substantial food shipments into the territory, but because Hamas systematically confiscates supplies, wielding food distribution as virtually its final mechanism of population control). Yet this particular image's fabricated nature suggests that genuine hunger, if present, remains far from catastrophic. Otherwise, masses of malnourished children would be available for documentation, equally photogenic as al-Mutaq but without underlying genetic disorders.

Our arguments require no deceptive foundation, yet despite this truth, audiences appear increasingly unreceptive. Israeli experiences possess equivalent visual impact, and our public diplomacy efforts match Gaza's sophistication. The fundamental issue involves legitimacy within international discourse. This doesn't constitute a suffering competition, and if such contests existed, perpetual defeat would be preferable. Even international observers recognize that no legitimate competition exists because predetermined outcomes eliminate fairness. Jewish anguish conflicts fundamentally with the antisemitic world's core assumptions, preventing acknowledgment. The so-called "international community" demonstrates systematic empathy deficits toward our experiences and existence.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad's disturbing video releases featuring hostages Ron Braslavski and Evyatar David represent genuine documentation, unfortunately. These individuals endure systematic, intentional starvation orchestrated by Hamas, which exploits their suffering to generate pressure on devastated families and Israeli society, where anguish has continued unabated since October 7. This pattern transforms aggressors into perceived victims. Focusing attention on "fabricated victims" – Gaza's population treated as a monolithic entity – advances Hamas objectives by redirecting scrutiny from their documented crimes against both Israeli captives and Palestinian civilians under their authority.

When international observers examine these contrasting images – one fabricated Gaza child versus authentic documentation of Rom and Evyatar – fundamental questions about truth and responsibility demand consideration. Currently available evidence regarding hostage conditions presents undeniably clear, severe, and deeply troubling documentation, while assertions about "mass famine" throughout Gaza lack credible supporting data, regardless of various genocide allegations. Until false equivalencies between Hamas and Israel cease, this moral distortion will persist, postponing the day when suffering across all affected populations finally ends.

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Arnold Klebbs opens the door and apologizes for not hearing the knock. He was busy with carpentry. At 92, he looks excellent, completely independent, articulate, and clear-minded. He recently celebrated his birthday, but for him, the real celebration comes on May 5, the day he was liberated 80 years ago from the Birkenau camp with other survivors by the American Army. This year, he feels particularly emotional about returning for the first time to the place where his life nearly ended.

Klebbs will participate in the March of the Living as part of a special delegation including 40 survivors from Israel – survivors of death camps, children who were hidden or survived in forests – who will walk, many for the first time since the war, along the same route as the death marches, this time accompanied by their family members. The march, one of the flagship events of Holocaust Remembrance Day, will mark 80 years since Europe's liberation from the Nazi regime and the end of World War II.

"This is a once-in-a-generation march," Revital Yakin Krakovsky, deputy CEO of the International March of the Living, said. "80 Holocaust survivors from around the world will lead the way for thousands who are receiving from them the responsibility for Holocaust remembrance in future generations."

Klebbs was born in Lithuania and was eight years old when the war broke out. His mother and sister survived; his father did not. In 1944, women and men were separated, and a few weeks later, he was separated from his father. At the moment of final parting, his father whispered to him the address of their family in the United States, which he burned into his memory.

In the Kovno ghetto, young Arnold understood that Jewish lives held no value. From the window, he watched a German soldier shoot a Jewish doctor dead simply because he didn't remove his hat quickly enough. His parents dug a narrow hiding place for him beneath the floorboards, where he concealed himself when Nazis came to conduct another mass deportation operation. That's how he survived the first time.

"In the ghetto, I experienced what true despair feels like. There were 30,000 Jews there, and one day the Nazis took 10,000 and shot them. It was a miracle they didn't take us. It was clear it was only a matter of time until they would murder us." After two years, the journey to concentration camps began – eleven in total. Each posed its own threats, but the Austrian concentration camp Gunskirchen (Wels II) was the most horrific. "There was no order, the place was strewn with bodies that weren't removed. They didn't feed us, they just let us die."

He arrived at Birkenau with 128 other children from Lithuania. The group was led by a 16-year-old boy who taught them to behave like strong, tough young men in order to survive. This convinced the SS officers to keep them alive rather than sending them immediately to the gas chambers. Weeks later, the boys underwent a selection by Dr. Joseph Mengele, who sent 75 of them to the gas chambers. He interrogated Arnold and, for some reason, allowed him to continue living. That evening, the child gazed at the crematorium chimneys and knew that the smoke rising from them contained the remains of his friends.

"One of the boys in our group managed to smuggle his tefillin in his shoes, and before we went out to work, he would secretly put on tefillin. We would stand around him to hide him and warn him if someone was approaching. I witnessed someone risking his life to fulfill a commandment – that made a tremendous impression on me."

How do you survive the grief over the death of those close to you, I ask him. "You don't think about it. The hunger was so terrible that all I thought about was how to get another slice of bread. The body takes over the mind. You no longer think like a human being, but like an animal."

Another thing that helped him avoid falling into despair was his friends. There was a rare solidarity between them that often saved their lives. "For example, during one of the death marches, we walked for four days and four nights nonstop, without food or water. At one point, I was so exhausted that they linked arms and carried me. Or when we were ordered to lie on the snow and I fell asleep immediately, and when they announced it was time to get up, I didn't wake up. My friends lifted me and carried me," Arnold Klebbs said. Only 25 of his friends survived the horrors.

At the end of this march, the survivors were loaded onto cattle cars without toilets, food, or water. They traveled for a week, with Arnold scraping ice from the walls of the cars to drink. The Allies mistakenly bombed the train, and many Jews were killed. The train stopped at Mauthausen, and Arnold was separated from his friends, who stayed in a nearby tent.

"I wanted to be with them. I left the tent, and then I saw an SS officer. I ran away from him back to the tent, and he tried to shoot me, but missed. Jews from the tent hid me under a blanket, and he didn't find me. That night, the Allies bombed the neighboring tent, the one I had tried to escape to, and many were killed.

"When the war ended, I came out of the forest and didn't know where to go. I understood that if the American army was driving to the right, it meant they were still fighting the Germans, so I went in the opposite direction. I asked them for food, and they threw me chocolate, which made me very sick. We were a small group of friends who survived. The owners of a small Austrian farm gave us food and a place to sleep. The next day, we met American soldiers, who put us in the barracks of German soldiers who had fled."

Later, he joined the Jewish Brigade. "It's hard to describe how I felt when I saw a Jewish soldier with a Star of David and a rifle. They danced the hora with us around a bonfire, and protected us as if we were their children. They put us in an orphanage in southern Italy, and one day a journalist from Tel Aviv came and interviewed me. Through that article, my mother found me and came to me. When I saw her, we ran to each other. She had been liberated along with my sister. Meanwhile, my sister had fallen in love with a soldier from the brigade, and they immigrated to Israel after he was discharged."

After his mother's second marriage, the family moved to the US, to the same address his father had whispered to him. "I didn't want to go. I wanted to be with my friends who survived with me and immigrated to Israel. I had always been a Zionist, and as a child, we learned Hebrew. But they didn't ask me."

He grew up, studied dentistry, and married a German woman who converted to Judaism for him. They had two children, and after his wife died in a car accident, he immigrated to Israel.

"Every day, images come to me. I see my father standing in front of me, giving me the address in America. I see Mengele sending my friends to their deaths. But I don't dwell on it, because I move on to thinking about my children, about my life, about the luck I have, and about the fact that today I am in Jerusalem. Looking back, when I consider all the coincidences that helped me survive, I believe that God helped me. Why me and not my amazing friends? I have no answer for that. In the camps themselves, I didn't think about why I was surviving or where God was. I just wanted to survive another day."

And why is he traveling to lead the March of the Living and step again for the first time on that cursed ground? "At Birkenau, for the first time since liberation, I will be able to say Kaddish [mourner's prayer] for all the friends I saw going up in smoke. I don't need a list with their names, I remember them every day. My children are coming with me. It's important to me that they see that terrible place."

"Hope to return with my spirit intact"

"Every time I tell my story, it comes back to me at night, and then I can't sleep," Yosef Farkash explained. He is 97, born in Hungary to a poor family, the ninth of 13 siblings. In 1944, when he was 16, the country was conquered by the Germans, and he realized he had to take action.

"I heard about Kristallnacht, I heard the news, also from refugees who came to us and told of the horrors they had experienced." Shortly before Passover, Jewish teenagers were forced to build the ghetto fences, and during Passover, families were moved inside. On the first day of the Hebrew month of Sivan, everyone was loaded onto trains to Auschwitz, and from there, Yosef's journey began.

After Auschwitz, he was in the Fünfteichen camp, where he worked cleaning toxic paint cans. From there, he was transferred to the main camp, Gross-Rosen, where he had to carry a 110-pound cement bag to the second floor of a building under construction. When work was pressured, they would put two bags on his back – 220 pounds, three times more than his body weight in those days. Once, one of the bags fell from Yosef's back, and the guard threw him from the second floor. His nose was broken in this fall.

"One day, I saw an empty cement bag in the garbage dump. I made a tank top from it so I would be warmer. In the evening, I returned to the camp, and the guards saw that I was too fat. There was a court in the camp that wanted to send me to the gallows, but my defender said I wasn't yet 18, so they commuted the sentence to 25 lashes. I probably wouldn't have survived them and would have died. But then a miracle happened: moments before they started beating me, an alarm sounded. The British Air Force arrived and bombed around the camp. Everyone scattered."

In October-November 1944, the Jews were sent on the death march. "In this march, whoever couldn't continue fell. The guards shot them in the head, and they remained there. I went through everything, saw the shootings, and we continued walking, like a herd, without question. Without thoughts. It's hard to explain. We walked."

At some point, they were loaded onto a cattle train, 200 people in an open car. It was impossible to sit. There was a guard who cordoned himself off, and occasionally he would fire a burst of bullets. Yosef was wounded in the leg by one of these bullet fragments. Of course, he didn't tell anyone about his injury, because he knew they would kill him for it.

In February 1945, Yosef was transferred to Buchenwald, where he stayed until April 11, liberation day. "In Buchenwald there were more than 25,000 people. When the American army arrived by surprise, the German guards were still at their posts, and that's how they captured the camp. The rabbi of the American army gathered the Jews who were in the camp. I didn't get out of bed for four days because of the gunshot wound. I didn't eat anything for eight days, just drank. When the military doctors arrived, they carried me in their arms, like a child. I weighed less than 62 pounds."

Together with other Jews, Yosef Farkash was evacuated to Switzerland on Rabbi Schechter's children's train, where he was hospitalized for about six months. There, he joined Youth Aliyah and met Shoshana, also a Holocaust survivor. They fell in love and married in Jaffa on November 29, 1949. They had three children and adopted three more biological siblings whose mother died in childbirth. When asked what kept him alive all this time, Yosef answered that it was his belief in life, his optimism. "I always believed tomorrow would be better."

Yosef's son, Shraga, said that until 2001, they didn't talk about the Holocaust at home. "I didn't tell the children the difficult stories," Yosef explained. "I wanted to protect them. I didn't focus on the hardship, the evil; I just looked forward and tried to see the good. I wanted them to also think that tomorrow would be better."

The father's hardships were revealed to his son by chance. "In 2001, my father was sitting at my place, and I saw he had a dent in his leg. I asked him if he had been hit, and it was like Pandora's box opening. He told everything. I told him we needed to go full circle: we should go to Auschwitz, Birkenau, and to his childhood town. We scheduled a trip, and suddenly he had a severe ulcer. It was clearly mentally difficult for him, but eventually it worked out and we went."

In the early 2000s, the bombed crematoria in Auschwitz were not yet fenced off, and it was possible to enter them. Yosef crawled under the ruins and lit a memorial candle. At that moment, he told his son that his revenge on the Nazis was that he had raised a family in Israel. When they returned home, Yosef showed his children a photo from liberation day, taken by an American soldier.

Another way Yosef's children learned about his experiences during those dark years was through his grandchildren's family history assignments. They interviewed him, and he told them an age-appropriate, softer version of the events ("without drama, without horrors"), as he also did in their schools. Yosef shared his story in the "Zikaron BaSalon" project (a social initiative of informal gatherings in private homes on Holocaust Remembrance Day), at Israel Defense Forces bases, and even testified before the IDF General Staff Forum.

This year, he received an invitation to lead the March of the Living with other survivors, marking 80 years since the liberation of the camps. His son and 14 of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren will accompany him. Nevertheless, the thought of returning to the camps weighs on him and stirs memories that haunt his dreams. Additionally, he has always opposed organized Holocaust education trips that take Israeli students to Poland to visit death camps and other Holocaust sites. "We don't need to send children there. The money we invest in these trips goes to the Poles, and they don't deserve it. They were worse than the Germans."

So why go? I asked. "The children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren – they all want me to come. I told my son that I don't know if I can go through all this again, because even when I went to tell my life story in schools, for several days I couldn't sleep. But my children convinced me that I am the head of the tribe, and that gave me confidence.

"Physically, I'll be fine. Mentally, I need to maintain the unity of the family. Because when they all embrace me, then we're all together. They're taking me there with love, I'm not going alone. We'll see how it works. I hope that with my children's support, I'll return with my spirit intact."

"Liberation was an empty victory"

Nathan Leipciger – Nate, asked me to wait a moment while he gets a hat. "Without it, I'm just an old man," he laughed during our video call from his home in Canada. It's a Polish leather cap that Nate has worn for 25 years, every time he goes to the March of the Living. It's his trademark.

The moment he puts on the hat, there's no stopping his flow of speech. He expresses himself fluently, in elevated language, with a clear-sighted and sensitive perspective.

"October 7 changed everything for survivors, because the impossible, the unexpected, and the inconceivable happened again. It was in a different place and under different circumstances, but this evil returned. It threw me off balance. I almost sank into despair, and it took me time to get out of that state. I managed to do it because I understood that today we are not helpless like we were in 1939. Today, we are part of an amazing country that represents us, which is the homeland of all Jews worldwide. If we ever thought that we, Diaspora Jews, could disconnect from Israel, October 7 made the opposite clear to us.

"At the same time, I understood something else: that our enemies today are not acting out of antisemitism, but they seek to destroy the entire Western culture, not just the Jewish people. The attack on Israel is just the first step in this struggle."

Nate, 97, is energetic and articulate. When he was 11, the Nazis invaded and conquered Poland. His world turned upside down when he was expelled with his parents and 14-year-old sister to the Sosnowiec ghetto. His father was sent to a labor camp, and Nate took an electrician course. For the next three years, he worked as an electrician's apprentice in a factory, and in 1943, his father returned to the ghetto, and the entire family was deported to Auschwitz. Men and women were separated at the camp. In a coincidence that's hard to explain, his father knew one of the Nazi officers and asked him to remove his son from the line of those condemned to death – and so it happened.

"What are the odds of that happening?! But it did happen, and I joined my father in the concentration camp. In an instant, I became a prisoner – without a name, just a number – but alive."

Life expectancy in the camp was four months. His father intervened again, and they were transferred to work in a factory near Breslau. In January 1945, when the Nazis realized their time was limited, they forced everyone who had managed to survive in the camps on death marches, without food and water for many days. Nate and his father walked in no fewer than five such marches. Thousands died along the way.

"When we arrived at Dachau in one of the marches, I almost gave up, and my father was angry that I was considering giving up. The survival mechanism during those two years was hope. The moment you lost it, your fate was sealed. But in Dachau, just before liberation, I almost lost hope because I was physically exhausted to the point of collapse. My father said I had no right to lose hope – and I listened to him."

Miraculously, for a reason still unclear to Nate today, the camp commander allowed them to stay in the camp instead of joining another death march, and they remained there until the American army arrived and liberated them. "I felt our liberation was an empty victory. We were alive, but we understood that we might be the only ones who survived from our entire family. We had no home and no country. I was hospitalized for three months because I contracted typhus, which almost killed me. Slowly, we began the journey back to life.

"My father was one of eight siblings. He had one brother in Canada, and the rest were slaughtered in the Holocaust. I had 14 cousins – only four survived. I was very fortunate to reach Canada in 1948. There I went to school, and after two years I went to study engineering at university. I got married and had three children, 19 grandchildren, and 12 great-grandchildren, thank God."

This year, Nate will walk in the March of the Living for the 21st time. "It's part of my life and my legacy as a Holocaust survivor. I feel it's the best way to pass on this lesson to young people, at the end of which they will deeply understand what it means to be Jewish, with our losses and victories. As the years go by, it becomes harder and harder, both mentally and physically. It takes me longer to recover from the trip, but I know it's necessary to teach the younger generation.

"Despite everything I've been through – I cannot hate, not even the Nazis. Because hatred is blind, and it prevents us from doing the right thing. We needed to bring them to trial and achieve justice. So many of them escaped. If we hate, we give up part of our humanity. That's what I say at the March of the Living. People ask me if I hate the descendants of the Nazis, and I say no. The sins of the parents do not pass to their children.

"Dealing with antisemitism in general, and the March of the Living in particular, looks different since October 7. It's more urgent, more important. The message I convey to groups has also changed. If in the past it was 'be proud Jews,' today I add 'be proud Zionists.' Zionism connects us, Diaspora Jews and Israel, religious and secular, in one common goal. We said 'never again,' and it sounds like an empty slogan – but it strengthens us. It's the only way to overcome difficulties."

The post 'I remember them every day': Holocaust survivors return to death camps 80 years after liberation appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

In the heart of Israel's military headquarters in Tel Aviv, known as the Kirya, two young intelligence officers have emerged as key figures in the ongoing war against Hezbollah. Captain D, a 25-year-old former combat soldier turned intelligence expert, and Lieutenant O, a 22-year-old rising star from Unit 8200, have spent months in "the pit," a nerve center where critical decisions shape the battlefield in Lebanon. Their mission is clear: dismantle Hezbollah's capabilities and ensure the safe return of northern Israel's residents.

Captain D, who heads the Lebanon desk in the IDF Intelligence Directorate's Operations Division, reflects on her unexpected journey. "I didn't grow up in intelligence," she says. "I served five years in the mixed-gender Carakal combat unit, but I felt the army had more to offer. I asked my brigade commander for a chance at the intelligence directorate, and somehow, I landed in the Operations Division." She laughs, recalling her initial shock at the scope of Israel's intelligence capabilities. "The commanders took a big risk on a combat officer like me, but I saw we're not pushovers here." Her role involves meticulous planning, including the September 2024 assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, which she describes as a means to a broader goal. "Everything we did, even eliminating Nasrallah, was about bringing Hezbollah to its lowest point so northern residents could return to a better reality," she tells Israel Hayom.

Lieutenant O, meanwhile, always had her sights set on the Operations Division. A product of Unit 8200, Israel's elite signals intelligence unit, she jumped at the chance to join despite it being her first role as an officer. "I knew that's where decisions are made," she explains. "I was nervous about the pressure, but I decided this was my place. You're in discussions with brigadier generals, voicing opinions, making suggestions." Her youth belies the weight of her responsibilities as she helps translate political directives into tactical actions on the ground.

The Operations Division, established after the Second Lebanon War in 2006, serves as the directorate's operational backbone. It unites various intelligence units under a single strategy, connecting the political echelon's objectives through the chief of staff to the directorate's head and down to field commanders. Located in the General Staff building, it also represents the directorate in high-level military discussions. "We're the nervous system," Lieutenant O says, emphasizing the division's dual role in planning and execution.

The turning point came on July 27, 2024, when a rocket strike killed 13 children on a soccer field in Majdal Shams, a Druze village in the Golan Heights. "I felt the logic shift that day," Captain D recalls. "The reality had to change too." From the Kirya, a massive intelligence effort zeroed in on Hezbollah's de facto chief of staff, Fuad Shukr, deemed responsible for the attack. "We got his name, and the race began," Lieutenant O says. "We weighed the implications, held countless debates, and crafted a recommendation. It's creative, it's intense, and it's our job to give commanders everything – pros, cons, costs – so they can go to the chief of staff and prime minister." Speed was critical: turning an idea into a bomb on a plane headed for its target.

Shukr's elimination in late July was just the beginning. The mid–September pager attack, a sophisticated operation that crippled Hezbollah's communications, marked a seismic shift. "Doors opened after that," Captain D notes. "We went into high emergency mode, planning the most significant blows to destroy Hezbollah." From the pit, surrounded by representatives from across the military, they orchestrated a multi-faceted assault. "We're half a step from the General Staff's main war room," she adds. "It was a huge blow for Hezbollah, synchronized across intelligence, operations, Northern Command, and the Israeli Air Force."

Nasrallah's assassination on September 27, 2024, was a pinnacle moment. "I'll never forget it," Lieutenant O says. "We heard the countdown for the munitions drop, saw the giant smoke cloud, and knew blood-stained enemies, including Nasrallah, had paid the price." For her, it was personal. "After October 7, everyone in the army carried pain or guilt. That moment filled me with pride. I had tears in my eyes." Yet, the celebration was brief. "The division head said, 'Great job, pat yourselves on the back, but get back to work,'" she recalls. "The goal isn't achieved yet."

The campaign then targeted Hezbollah's financial and support networks. "We hit their funding bodies and executive council, which ties them to their Shiite base," Captain D. explains. The resulting "economic blow" – executed with precision and inter-agency coordination – caught Hezbollah off guard. "Seeing cash flying in the streets, knowing it won't fund the next rocket to Majdal Shams, feels incredible," she says. "We're dismantling their value chain, from the last operative to the launcher to the dollar bill."

Both officers stress creativity and adaptability. "We're not parrots," Captain D. insists. "We get a required outcome – like hitting Hezbollah economically – and maximize it with the tools we have." Lieutenant O adds, "We know every capability the IDF has, pick the right one, and offer alternatives. We also learned from the south constantly." Their work continues as they enforce a fragile ceasefire, with Lieutenant O vowing, "My job is to keep Hezbollah from raising its head."

Captain D, now discharged, reflects on the war's toll and her partnership with Lieutenant O. "There were tough moments, and I'm so glad she was with me," she says. "Her parents should know she's a rock star – she doesn't tell them anything!" For northern residents hesitant to return, she offers reassurance: "The state, the army, and our mindset have changed since October 7. We're a better army, and our mission is to prove they can live in peace for another 75 years."

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We are deeply worried—for our soldiers, our hostages, the mental health of our children, and whatever remains of our sanity. We are mobilized, volunteering, tending to our wounds. We are evacuating or slowly returning to our destroyed homes, rebuilding. We are treating trauma victims, reviving collapsed businesses, and mustering strength for the future. It is an immense load.

At the same time, we are facing a massive wave of antisemitism, one of the largest and most brutal we have ever known. We cannot handle everything on our own. Therefore, I make two unapologetically bold requests of world Jewry—our brothers and sisters. We need help. This is not financial assistance but two entirely different forms of support: one practical and the other, deeply emotional.

The practical request

While we are fighting a physical war for our lives and the survival of the state, Israel is also waging a war of perception. Too often, we find ourselves having to defend the very idea of our existence, our right to live. It's absurd, it's frustrating, but it's the reality: even after enduring unimaginable harm, we are still viewed by many around the world as the ones at fault. In this ongoing battle of narratives, Israel repeatedly fails.

This is where we need the young and bright Jewish minds across the globe. Enter the virtual communities and influence them. Speak their language, connect with their values, and recruit them to our cause. If they are frustrated, connect with their frustration and share our own. If they are speaking of oppression, talk about the oppression of Jews worldwide. If they stand against racism, highlight antisemitism. Appeal to emotions, not facts, as facts have become secondary in today's reality of perception wars. (After all, many of the anti-Israel protesters have no idea about the geography of the region or the historical context; they "feel" they are for Palestine.)

Hamas does this exceptionally well. Just as Hamas infiltrates LGBTQ+ communities online (as far-fetched as it sounds, they've succeeded) or environmental groups, we can and must fight using the same tools.

The emotional request

To rebuild, recover, hope, and look toward the future, we need to stop being haunted by memories. The horrors of October 7 pursue us in our sleep and as we wake. Fear shadows us, dragging us down and, at times, nearly paralyzing us.

Of course, this nightmare must not be forgotten, but we cannot be the ones to carry the memory. It is too much for us. Therefore, I ask the Jewish diaspora to take on this responsibility for us. Watch all the videos, feel all the fear, and ensure that neither forgiveness nor forgetfulness prevails. You have reserves of emotional strength. Ours are depleted.

Before we can rebuild, we need a thick blanket of forgetfulness to envelop us—a comforter of solace, a womb where everything is alright, where things like this do not happen. From such a place, it is easier to create, to initiate, and to plan. From there, we can be reborn. And an angel will gently place a finger on our lips, erasing the pain, allowing us to laugh without dead eyes watching us, to dance without the word "dance" conjuring trauma, to sow and build homes just because—not despite. Thank you.

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The nation was deeply moved when Lt. Ivri Dickshtein's flowers for his wife arrived after his death, but Miriam wasn't surprised. She was used to his thoughtful gestures.

Before Rosh Hashanah too, Ivri had sent her flowers and chocolate with his words from the northern front, "My dear wife, I'm writing to you during these days of war, fear, and uncertainty. Here's a small gift to remind you of better days. As the new year approaches, I wish that the coming year brings blessings, good choices, and above all, life and peace! Love you and miss you very much."

When he wasn't sending flowers, Ivri found other creative ways to express his love – sending symbolic amounts through a payment app, each with a different message. His final transfer came at 2 a.m. on Oct. 2, two days before his death: $32 with the note "A gift for tough times, from Ivri, your loving husband." There was no financial logic in sending money to someone sharing his bank account – but that wasn't the point.

Their four-year relationship began with a pre-arranged ride from Ofra to Eli. "Ivri kept my phone number," recalls Miriam. That number led to a love story that would never see a break or drama. "Ivri had the strength of a wall," she says. "I could lean on him. That's what built our stability and love.

"We're still at war," she tells the many who come to comfort her. "People go into battle knowing what lies ahead and what they leave behind. We need to be worthy of them. And as Ivri always said – we need to lift our heads and look at everything from a broader perspective."

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In this year's context, considering the October 7 massacre and the rise of antisemitism around the world, remembering and commemorating the Holocaust are increasingly important in the face of a rapidly disappearing generation of survivors. "Sharing Memories" is Meta's annual Holocaust Remembrance Day project in Israel, and its main goal is to connect the younger generation to the testimonies of Holocaust survivors and raise awareness of their economic situation.

Every year, about 20 celebrities and content creators, with hundreds of thousands of followers, participate in the project, meeting with Holocaust survivors and recording their testimonies. The videos of these meetings are then shared as reels on Instagram, helping creators connect their young audiences to the stories of the survivors.

In the project, which the Latet organization also takes part in, several celebrities have participated, including Odeya Azulay, Meshi Kleinstein, Anna Aronov, Or Shpitz, Michael Rapaport, Dana Frieder, Orel Tsabari, and Ania Bukstein.

"These two holocausts are totally different since I know everyone in Be'eri"

Haim Ra'anan, 89

It took them 20 hours, beginning at 6:30 a.m. on that terrible Shabbat, to be evacuated from the kibbutz. Haim Ra'anan, an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor, hid in the shelter in his house in Kibbutz Be'eri with his caregiver, son, and grandson. They could not leave the shelter or utter a sound, as the rumors that reached them via WhatsApp were horrifying: terrorists had raided the kibbutz, invaded homes, murdered and kidnapped their friends.

It also took a long time for the evacuation to take place. "The soldiers put me in a wheelchair and started taking me out," he says. "Walking 300 or 400 meters to the kibbutz  gate took us an hour and a half."

"As we evacuated, we heard the shooting and saw the explosions and burning apartments, but you didn't even think about it because you were still in survival mode. We crossed the street where my grandchildren live. When I passed the homes of my grandchildren, I asked the soldiers if they had already evacuated these homes and what had happened to them. Actually, it was only when I got onto the bus that I realized they were fine. I can't express how fortunate I am. Next door to my granddaughter's apartment, a father and his baby were murdered by gunfire. My home wasn't invaded by terrorists, but terrorists attempted and even succeeded in invading the houses of all my grandchildren, fortunately, they are all safe. The house of one of my granddaughters was set on fire, but they escaped through a window to another neighbor's apartment. It was a miracle."

Wallenberg – then and now

He was born in Hungary in 1935, and when WWII began, his father was in Israel making preparations for his family's aliyah. "For the entire period of my childhood, the one I actually never had, I grew up without my father," he says.

Since he was a child during those dark war days, he does not remember much of them. "The only picture I have from that time is of my mother and me in the Jewish ghetto, with a yellow badge on our clothes." He only remembers how they were saved with the help of certificates issued for them by Raoul Wallenberg, the Righteous Among the Nations. "They helped us get out of the ghetto and move to another area of Budapest. Thanks to them, we survived." By an interesting coincidence, Haim is currently living in a sheltered housing complex located on Raoul Wallenberg Street in Tel Aviv.

Today, Haim has 19 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. During the Holocaust, he was the same age as one of his grandchildren with whom he locked himself in the shelter on October 7. In spite of the many comparisons, Haim is able to distinguish between the experiences clearly: "These two Holocausts are entirely different stories for me. The 6 million feel differently than my kibbutz's 200 residents who were murdered, kidnapped, or injured. I knew everyone in Be'eri."

"My real Holocaust was when my grandson was kidnapped"

Tzili Wenkert, 83

"When Hamas kidnapped Omer, my grandson, all of my pain suddenly burst open. He is such a gorgeous boy, so cute and so kind. I feel as if someone has smashed me with a big hammer. This is the real Holocaust," says Tzili Wenkert, 83, a Holocaust survivor.

"My adorable, kindhearted grandson is a hard worker and a student - what has he done?", she continues in deep sorrow. "He is not in good health, he suffers from colitis, a condition that requires medication. There is no way of knowing whether the medication that was sent reached him. No one knows anything."

When Tzili was only six weeks old, in August 1941, she was taken to a small room in the ghetto with her parents, where they lived for three and a half years with her grandfather, grandmother, and two aunts.

"We lived in very poor conditions. Due to the cold winter and the lack of electricity, the family had to sell their belongings in order to buy food and wood. I remember the Nazis bombarding the ghetto and many people dying from the attacks, hunger, diseases, and the freezing temperatures."

Even with poverty, hunger, and constant worry, her family tried to hold Shabbat dinners and even bought an emaciated chicken for everyone sometimes. The mother of Tzili knew how to stitch, and she made her children's clothes from her grandfather's shirt, and boots out of his hat. As a child, Tzili became ill with dysentery, but there were no medicines and no physicians in the ghetto. "My grandmother did things that grandmothers do, and she saved me. I was unable to walk, but I survived and recovered."

Torn to pieces

After miraculously surviving the war, Tzili and her family returned to her father's hometown. In addition to the hardships and poverty of that time, she remembers getting a little sister while being three and a half years old. "We rented a small apartment with no electricity and applied to make Aliyah to Israel."

However, the communist regime in Romania prevented her family from moving to Israel, and it was only after she got married that she made Aliyah in 1965, together with her husband, who was a Holocaust survivor as well. "I wanted to come home to the state of Israel. It was not an easy transition for me, my husband passed away at a young age and I was left alone with the children."

She has been filled with worry and fear since October 7. "I was a baby during the Holocaust in Europe, and I had a family. But now, who will protect me? Everyone is in distress. There is pain in my heart for Omer, but there is also pain in my heart for my sons - Omer's father and Omer's uncle, who barely speaks. He has no children of his own, so his brother's children are in fact his children as well.

"I wish us better days. Almost every morning, I hope that maybe there was a miracle last night and I missed it. In my heart, I am torn to pieces. I have always thought it could have been worse. Long ago, I decided there was nothing to cry about, and I still don't cry to this day. I just feel like my nose is a little wet."

Tzili wishes to convey a message to her grandson: "Please come home Omer, stay safe, and do whatever you want. When you visit Grandma, take her abroad. It is now your turn to take her. Did you hear that, my baby?"

"Back then, we were scattered all over the world; but now we are in a country with our own army"

Pnina Ben Yosef, 84

"I remember every detail of that terrible day," says Holocaust survivor Pnina Ben Yosef, 84, a resident of Kfar Maimon in the Gaza Envelope. As she woke up to the explosions of missiles, she thought they were heavier than usual. "With a broken leg, I sat with a cup of coffee in front of the window and wondered why people don't attend the synagogue. It was Simchat Torah. At that moment, my daughter and grandson, who was already wearing a military uniform, broke into my home, informed me that a war had broken out, and took me to the shelter."

She stayed at the shelter for many hours, unaware of what was happening outside. A group of terrorists approached the Moshav fence and managed to shoot down a helicopter, but soldiers killed them. Pnina considers this a miracle: "If this had not happened, there would most likely have been a massacre here as well. In the afternoon, we received a WhatsApp message calling all gun owners to the armory. I wondered if I should ride my scooter out with my personal gun, but I was afraid."

Pnina remained at the shelter until Tuesday afternoon when the chairman of the local emergency team came to tell her she had to leave. She refused. After he bluntly explained that she would be a burden if she stayed, Pnina left Kfar Maimon, for the first time in her life, feeling that her time had passed and that she could no longer contribute.

For the Israeli public, Kfar Maimon will be remembered as the place where tens of thousands of protestors did not march as planned to Gush Katif after the Yesha council prevented the police from breaching the perimeter. "Had the demonstration continued and they had been successful in stopping the deportation - October 7 would not have taken place. The difficult circumstances began after the deportation. We received strong fences, electric gates, and shelters, but maybe now we will get tunnels and bunkers as well," she concludes.

In the midst of the year's events, Pnina realized how much these days differed from her childhood in Europe. "I was born after the German invasion of Poland, a year after my uncle was murdered. As a locomotive driver, my father carried supplies to the front and brought back wounded people. One day, he stopped in our town, told the family what he saw and what was happening to Jews, and told them to leave everything and run away. As they have lived there for hundreds of years and have experienced many pogroms, they believed that it would also pass eventually."

"He managed to rescue only my mother and me; the rest stayed behind and perished. We escaped to Russia. After the war, we were deported back to Poland, and it turned out that nobody was left in the family. We ended up in a refugee camp in Austria, in which we stayed until 1948, and in April we arrived in Israel."

According to Pnina, the Holocaust of European Jews is a completely distinct event from the October 7 massacre: "We were scattered all over the world during the Holocaust, we were powerless to do anything to stop the slaughter, but now we are here in our country with our own army. We were shocked and terrified, and our losses were huge, but we managed to pull ourselves together and raise our heads."

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Holocaust survivor Ruth Haran from Kibbutz Be'eri can barely sleep at night. Sometimes she has dreams in which she runs, running out of air and with no direction, not knowing from whom she is fleeing or why. Until a week ago, when something changed, and for the first time she dreamt of her firstborn son, Avshalom, who was murdered by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7.

"My son told me that he is not in the casket we buried him in, and I still can't understand the dream," Ruth says, her voice breaking. "When I woke up, I didn't eat or drink all day. The terrorists murdered Avshalom and desecrated his body. I miss him so much, I miss him asking 'Mom, how's it going?'. I carry his picture with me and speak to him all the time."

Similarly, Ruth's fellow kibbutz member and also a Holocaust survivor, Haim Ra'anan, 89, went through what he described as a second Holocaust on Oct. 7. 

"Never in my life did I imagine that as a Holocaust survivor, I would be hiding in fear for my life again. The massacre wiped out about 10% of Be'eri's 1,000 residents. Over 100 were murdered or abducted to the Gaza Strip that day. For me, there was one huge difference between Oct. 7 and the Holocaust. 

"During the Shoah, I did not personally know the six million who perished, but in the Be'eri massacre, I knew almost every single person who was killed."

The lives of Ruth and Haim are intertwined with tragedies. They are two of about 865 Israelis from the south who experienced firsthand two of the most horrific atrocities committed against Jews. According to data from the Welfare and Social Affairs Ministry, about 2,000 Holocaust survivors from across Israel were evacuated from their homes in the aftermath of the Hamas onslaught.

Ruth, who barely escaped the horrors of the Nazis in Romania, immigrated to Israel and settled in the south. At no point did she imagine that at age 88, while living in the Promised Land, she would yet again face a horrific massacre, which she too said felt like a second Holocaust. Hamas terrorists not only murdered her son, but also took hostage seven of her family members, including her daughter, daughter-in-law, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

A few months ago, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Ruth led the Public Diplomacy Directorate's international campaign. Gigantic billboards with her pain-filled face with the word "SURVIVOR" below were hung in front of the United Nations headquarters and in Times Square in New York. In a chilling video, she spoke about the horrifying similarity between the acts of the Nazis and Hamas terrorists. 

"When babies are murdered in their cots, when women are raped, thrown to the ground and murdered, viciously, satanically, innocents – that's a Holocaust!" she says in the video. 

"I'm always asked about the similarities between the Holocaust and Oct. 7,  and I answer that in both cases there was a deliberate, systematic, evil, and completely satanic destruction. The Holocaust is the darkest stain in the history of the 20th century. A trauma for all of humanity, which caused the devaluation of human life.

"As time goes by, the memory of the Holocaust becomes more difficult and raises questions of 'why?'. How could such a thing happen? It's a monstrous puzzle that makes it difficult to understand the fabric of human experience. The Nazis tattooed numbers on the arms of Jews in the death camps with one goal: to break their Jewish identity.

"This is exactly what the terrorists did on Oct. 7. When IDF soldiers came to evacuate me from the house – after I had been besieged for about 24 hours – I saw sights I will never forget. The body of a neighbor was lying in the yard and babies and children were strewn on the lawns. I also saw a bloody crib. The terrorists turned our paradise into hell."

"A quiet place, until tragedy struck"

Since Oct. 7, Ruth has taken on another title in addition to being a Holocaust survivor. She is now also an evacuee. While her fellow Be'eri residents have been staying at a Dead Sea Hotel and are preparing to move to Kibbutz Hatzerim, she has spent the last few months in a nursing home in Beersheba. A month ago, she asked to return for the first time to the decimated kibbutz, where she had moved for Avshalom. 

"I couldn't stop crying at the destruction and ruin," Ruth said, her voice breaking again. "Parts of my house survived, but Avshalom's house was completely burned down. Nothing was left of it. I moved to Be'eru three years ago, after living 40 years in Omer. I loved the kibbutz life, the orchards, the groves, the fields, and the blossoms. It's a community of good, hard-working, and creative people."

The tragedies Ruth has endured are reflected in her somber eyes. Although she has reached old age, she looks younger than 88 and her mind is sharp. 

"My mother once said I was born unlucky because winds of war were blowing across Europe," Ruth recounted, describing her childhood in Bucharest, Romania. "I was the youngest of four children in a time when the Fascist Benito Mussolini ruled in Italy, the dictator Francisco Franco ruled in Spain, and in Romania, the antisemitic Iron Guard movement persecuted Jews."

Ruth's family suffered from relentless persecution by the Nazis. "After the Germans flooded half of Russia and all of Ukraine, we traveled by train for weeks to Uzbekistan."

In 1945, at the end of World War II, Ruth's family moved to Kishinev, Moldova, which was under Soviet rule, and her father was appointed a medical inspector to eradicate typhus. 

"Unfortunately, my father contracted the disease and died. My mother searched for a week to find a Jewish cemetery until she found one in Bessarabia. After the burial, we returned to Bucharest with money an uncle sent us, but my mother had already decided we would immigrate to Israel. Judaism was part of us throughout the Holocaust. We always remembered our religion and celebrated all the holidays."

At age 18, while serving in the military, Ruth met her late husband, Haim. The two wed in 1958 and soon after their firstborn, Avshalom, was born. 

"He was wonderful," Ruth said of her son, crying. "A special child and a special man. After him, my son Ronen was born, who lives in Australia, and my daughter Sharon Avigdori, who was abducted to Gaza and has since been released. I moved to Be'eri after undergoing surgery. I had cancer and I hope I've recovered."

Q: Weren't you worried about the proximity to Gaza or the rockets?

"I've lived in the Negev all my life. Be'eri was a comfortable, quiet place until tragedy struck. That morning, [when the sirens first began] I almost didn't go into the shelter [due to how often sirens are heard in communities bordering the strip]. I heard knocks on the door, so I opened it. There were two Hamas terrorists there. I wasn't afraid. I looked them in the eyes. Suddenly they turned around and left, because someone called them, and I ran inside."

Q: Where did you find the courage?

"Maybe because of my childhood and what I went through. My father was a pacifist and an idealist, and I'm like him. He gave me good tools to cope. When I think of Oct. 7 now, it angers me and pains me. Why was I lucky but not my son? Someone watched over me during the Holocaust and on that day too, but not over my son whom everyone loved. He was killed after leaving the bomb shelter to warn people not to come to Be'eri." 

On Oct. 7, which was the Simhat Torah holiday, Avshalom, 66, and his wife Shoshan, 67, hosted his sister Sharon and her daughter Noam, 12, as well as their daughter Adi, 38, and her husband Tal Shoham, 39, and their children Naveh, 8, and Yahel, 3.

Except for Avshalom, everyone was taken hostage. Everyone, except for Tal, was released in November as part of a temporary ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Tal remains captive in Gaza. 

"I didn't sleep until they returned," Ruth shared. "I carried a prayer in my heart that they would return healthy and whole. In the past I was a family therapist, I established a center for the treatment of sexual abuse in Beersheba, and I hear that's what happens to women in captivity. I was very worried for my female family members, all of whom are beautiful, and I'm glad that this did not happen to them.

Q: After all you've been through in nine decades, do you have any optimism left? 

"I'm full of admiration for the people who run the nursing home I'm staying at and for those who live here, who are middle-class Holocaust survivors. There are so many good people here and it gives me strength. So does the younger generation. I see the girls fighting for their captive fathers and the beautiful, strong, and conscientious widows. Everyone has such high values and it's touching. Perhaps from this, a better people will emerge, assuming we don't let some ministers in the government ruin our lives."

"Terrorists entered the homes of all my children" 

For 20 hours, from 6 a.m. on that cursed Saturday morning until they were evacuated at 2 a.m., 89-year-old Haim Ra'anan barricaded himself, along with his caregiver, son, and grandson, in the shelter of his house in Kibbutz Be'eri. His wife was not home as she had traveled with her two brothers to Tel Aviv.

They couldn't go out, or even make a sound, and the rumors reaching them on WhatsApp were horrifying: terrorists had invaded the kibbutz, entered homes, murdered, and abducted friends. 

Even the evacuation itself took a while. 

"Strong soldiers put me in a wheelchair and began taking me out," Haim recounted. "It took us an hour and a half to travel 300 or 400 meters to the assembly point at the kibbutz gate. Throughout the evacuation, we heard the gunfire and saw the explosions and burning buildings. At that moment, you're not thinking about it, you're still in survival mode.

"The whole story took place under fire, amid combat. Someone living in my building was shot in the stomach and eventually died. Each time the soldiers looked around and said, 'Wait here for a moment, we need to check the area and see if everything is okay.'

"All my grandchildren live along that street. Every time we reached where a granddaughter lived, I told the soldiers: 'Have you evacuated this house yet? What's happening with them?'"

Q: Were you in touch with your family that morning?

"Yes, but in essence, I only knew everyone was okay when I got to the bus. I don't know how to describe that luck. In the apartment next to one of my granddaughters, the father and baby were killed by gunfire. The terrorists didn't enter my house but did succeed in entering the homes of all my grandchildren, without exception. Luckily, they all survived. For one granddaughter, they started burning the house, and she and her family escaped through the window and went to the shelter of other neighbors. A miracle."

"I had no childhood"

Haim was born in 1935 in Hungary. When World War II broke out, his father was already in pre-state Israel, paving the way for his family's immigration.

"My entire childhood, that I didn't have essentially, I was far from my father," he described. "The only picture I have from that period is of me with my mother in the Jewish ghetto, wearing a yellow patch on our clothes. As a child in Hungary, when the violence and hatred toward Jews increased, we were forced to wear a yellow patch and our family home was marked with a swastika to identify us as Jews. It was done to dehumanize, terrorize, and isolate us from the rest of society.

"Eight decades later, I was horrified to see the Star of David painted again on Jewish homes across Europe to mark and intimidate them in the wake of the devastating Oct. 7 massacre. It's so similar to the antisemitic marking of homes that I experienced in my childhood, it's chilling. I never imagined something like that could happen again in Europe."

Q: What do you remember from your childhood in Hungary?

"Like I said, as a child living in the Jewish ghetto, I essentially had no childhood. It was robbed of it because of persecution and war. We were always looking for food, living in constant tension about how the day would unfold. Would we be deported? Would we have enough food to last another day? Would we survive the harassment, terror, and killings?

"One day, my family heard that the militia was looking for us. We couldn't escape the ghetto, so we just waited for them to come. It didn't take long before we heard a knock on the door. When we opened it, we saw three militiamen at our doorstep. As they entered, one of them removed his hat, and, to our surprise, my grandfather recognized him.

"He was a distant relative who had come to our home with official papers from the Swedish embassy that granted us a certain diplomatic protection. With those precious papers, we were able to move to the 'international ghetto' in Budapest, which was designated for Jews and their families who held protective papers from a neutral country. We managed to survive there until the Soviets arrived, and we were among the lucky few because nearly 80% of Hungarian Jewry perished."

The precious documents were issued by Swedish architect Raoul Wallenberg, who saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust. Interestingly, Haim now temporarily resides on Wallenberg Street in Tel Aviv. 

He is a grandfather to 19 grandchildren and a great-grandfather to 14 great-grandchildren, and his age during the Holocaust was the same as one of his grandchildren with whom he sheltered on Oct. 7.

Q: What did you go through on that terrible morning? 

"I heard continuous sirens in the kibbutz. At first, I thought it was 'just' another rocket attack from Gaza, like the ones we had already grown accustomed to. No one could have predicted the massacre that took place. Shortly after, we began receiving reports that Hamas terrorists were all over the kibbutz and trying to break into shelters. The terrorists set fire to many homes to force the residents out, but many preferred to die in the fires than be murdered by the terrorists.

"I was extremely lucky that the terrorists did not reach my home and that my entire family living throughout the kibbutz survived the massacre. I don't know what I would have done if one of my grandchildren or great-grandchildren had been abducted to Gaza."

Addressing European ambassadors

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Haim was invited to speak before the ambassadors of the European Union in Israel, as part of a project that was also featured in Germany and the United States. 

Haim shared with the ambassadors how he grew up in Hungary, survived the Holocaust against all odds, and was one of the founding members of Kibbutz Be'eri that was decimated by Hamas on Oct. 7. 

He called on the diplomats to make sure history does not repeat itself and urged them to fight against the spread of antisemitism and support Israel's efforts in returning the hostages home.

"In the shadow of grief and sorrow – optimism and hope as well"

Haim and Ruth were photographed for the Humans of Israel – 7th of October project, created by photographer and lecturer Erez Kaganovitz. 

"Since the terrible attack on Israel on Oct. 7, my world, like that of many others in the country and around the globe – stopped," he told Israel Hayom. "On that day, and in its aftermath, hundreds of stories of heroism and hope emerged from many sectors of Israeli society. People like Haim, Ruth, and many others, did everything possible to survive and save lives.

"Following countless inspiring stories I was exposed to, I decided to create the exhibition, which tells the stories in a unique way and brings – in the shadow of grief and sorrow – optimism and hope as well."

The post 'As Holocaust survivor, I never imagined I would be hiding in the kibbutz I founded' appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Four years ago, a group of Palestinian terrorists wounded ten Israelis in a shooting attack outside the Ofra settlement, including a pregnant woman, whose baby died after being born prematurely.

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Having escaped, the same group targeted IDF soldiers just three days later, killing two. Their fellow soldiers would later testify, "Our world came to an end. We carried their coffins at their funerals. We felt terrible pain and suffering."

These same soldiers were later sent by the military to arrest those who provided shelter for the senior terrorist, and unable to control their grief, beat them up on the way back after passing the scene of the attack.

There is no dispute that such an was wrong, and all five soldiers involved in the incident were held accountable.
But the real blow came when they learned that the terrorists were suing the state and them personally for damages. And what was most astonishing was the IDF's offer for compensation, which felt like a betrayal.

"We chose to leave the ultra-Orthodox world and enlist in the IDF, often without support and encouragement from family members, some of us as lone soldiers. We asked to enlist in combat units and contribute [to the state] as much as we could," the soldiers wrote in a crowdfunding campaign launched in recent days to help fund legal defense fees.

And so, one cannot help but think, what is the IDF thinking? At its core, such conduct is an attempt to evade responsibility, which not only clashes with morality, but with the very law of the state.

Morally speaking, the IDF's choice to send the soldiers to arrest the terrorists who had murdered their fellow fighters was appalling, as it put them in an impossible situation. What did the military expect would happen?
From a legal point of view, Israeli law stipulated that an employer is liable for the acts committed by his employee, which extends to the IDF as well.

True, the military can claim that it only sent the soldiers to arrest the terrorists, and not beat them up. True, young men are required to enlist by law and cannot ignore this duty. But a soldier is the extension of his commander and of the entire military.

The responsibility lies on the IDF, there is no doubt about it. The military must accept responsibility for its soldiers. It is morally, legally and ethically obligated to do so, because just as the soldiers are obligated to the military, so the military is obligated to the soldiers. It is a two-way street.

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The post Why is the IDF not defending its soldiers? appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.