By Leah Garber
Did the Holocaust Remembrance siren—the annual mourning wail that pierced Israel’s skies at precisely 10 a.m., cleaving both heavens and hearts—somehow cross the bleeding divide between Israel and Gaza, penetrating the dark terror tunnels to reach the ears of the 59 of us still languishing in captivity?
When birds took startled flight at the siren’s haunting call, did their scattered feathers drift toward our brothers in torment? Perhaps those feathers carried whispers from home, gentle reminders to them that beyond their prison walls, life still soars freely in the open air.
Today, Holocaust Remembrance Day, on which the Jewish world honors the six million victims of Nazi genocide, marks the second time we are struggling to separate those memories from our most recent catastrophe—the October 7 massacre, our greatest tragedy since those dark days 80 years ago.
There was only one Holocaust, humanity’s darkest hour. Yet each victim of October 7—the hostages, the survivors of sexual violence, the murdered—endured their own private holocaust of unspeakable horror. It is their truth, their lived experience.
During World War II, Zippora Rubin’s parents fled the Vilna Ghetto, assumed Christian identities, and found shelter through a Righteous Among the Nations. Zippora was born in hiding and baptized as a Christian—her family’s path to survival. After the war, they immigrated to Israel, and Zippora eventually settled on Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of the communities most devastated on October 7. On that fateful morning, 80-year-old Zippora huddled with family in a shelter as terrorists invaded. They hid beneath furniture before fleeing their burning home, concealing themselves outdoors until soldiers finally arrived. “For me,” Zippora reflects, “this was a second Holocaust. Others may take issue with my words, but for me, ‘Holocaust’ is the only fitting term.”
Nelly Prezma, a 99-year-old Holocaust survivor, endured the horrors of Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, and Bergen-Belsen. Having lost her entire family, she moved to Israel alone, building a new life on Kibbutz Dorot in the Gaza envelope, her heart still somehow open to hope. Nelly now bears the distinction of being Israel’s oldest evacuee—forced from her home yet again on October 7, alongside fellow kibbutz members. “I never imagined living through this twice,” she says. “There is no difference between Hamas and the Nazis—the outcome is identical, the evil indistinguishable. Both sought our destruction simply because we are Jews.”
Holocaust survivor Michael Kuperstein, 84, now faces what he calls his “second Holocaust.” His grandson Bar, 21, was abducted to Gaza from the Nova Music Festival. In a haunting video filmed shortly after his capture, Bar appears bound at his extremities, a rope encircling his neck. A trained medic, Bar had been helping the wounded when terrorists descended upon the festival. Though he had opportunities to escape with those he rescued, he repeatedly chose to return to the inferno, continuing his rescue efforts until terrorists captured him. For 566 days, he has remained in captivity.
Evil wears countless masks and speaks in myriad tongues. Our people’s history flows as a river of blood, tears, fear, and terror. Yet time after time, though we are struck down, we rise anew.
As a child of 10, I wrote a school essay entitled “Sorry I’m Late.” While my classmates wrote about tardiness to lessons or social gatherings, I wrote of the world’s belated apology to Holocaust victims—for their failure to intervene, for standing idle while Jews were devoured by Nazi brutality, for not moving heaven and earth to halt the machinery of genocide. Some apologies come too late for forgiveness.
Now, eight decades after history’s most horrific war, much of the world again has stepped aside, shifting blame to Israel, denying our fundamental right to self-defense, to reclaim our hostages, and to ensure the October 7 atrocities never recur.
Antisemitic incidents worldwide have surged catastrophically since the Hamas terror attack, reaching levels unprecedented in modern tracking. The Anti-Defamation League reports a 344% increase compared to the previous five years—the highest recorded since they began monitoring antisemitic incidents 46 years ago.
Will this hatred someday seek its own belated forgiveness? Will humanity ever awaken from its moral slumber? When will light finally penetrate the perverse ethical distortion gripping so many—academics, opinion leaders, self-proclaimed enlightened thinkers—who cannot or will not distinguish between victim and aggressor, between light and darkness?
Nothing has changed in 80 years. Hatred, malice, and cruelty still bubble like black lava not far beneath civilization’s surface, feeding ignorance and intellectual dishonesty, which are no less dangerous than knives and bullets.
In President Isaac Herzog’s moving address at Yad Vashem’s Holocaust Remembrance ceremony last night, he shared the story of Yosef Lavie, who, as a young boy in Benghazi, Libya, was expelled from his home and endured torture before eventually arriving at the Bergen-Belsen death camp. There, a fellow prisoner discovered Yosef had never celebrated his bar mitzvah and gifted him a prayer shawl, a tallit. Thus, in death’s very shadow, Yosef marked his passage to Jewish manhood. After liberation, he made his way to Israel and fought to free Jerusalem during the 1948 War of Independence. Until his final day, he treasured that tallit as an emblem of resilience, hope, and triumph. When asked how he survived, Yosef answered: “The tallit reminded me who I am. Where I came from. And that the future was still waiting for me.”
Like countless others throughout our history, Yosef understood he was a link in our ancestral chain—a magnificent lineage of creation and compassion, a chain radiant with richness and infinite beauty, though battered and worn by suffering. In that prayer shawl, that quintessential Jewish symbol, Yosef recognized his connection to our eternal people. And even when darkness suffocated Bergen-Belsen and crematoria smoke eclipsed the sun, the tallit illuminated his days and planted within him the hope that ultimately saved him.
Hungarian born Hannah Szenes moved to Israel in 1939 and joined young pioneers establishing Kibbutz Sdot Yam near Caesarea. During World War II, she volunteered with the British Army to parachute near the Hungarian border and join partisan fighters. In June 1944, at only 23 years old, Hannah was captured by Hungarian soldiers. Imprisoned in Budapest, her birthplace, she endured brutal torture yet refused to reveal military secrets or betray her comrades. Placed before a bumbling firing squad, she suffered prolonged agony before her heart finally ceased.
Two years earlier, in 1942, while sitting on Caesarea’s shore, Hannah composed “Eli Eli | My God, My God,” whose words seemingly foreshadowed her fate. Nonetheless, she understood she fought for something eternal, something that would transcend her mortal existence.
“My God, My God,
May these things never end:
The sand and the sea,
The rustle of the water,
The lightning of the sky,
The prayer of humanity”
—Hannah Szenes, 1942
As long as nature’s beauty and humanity’s kindness endure, our ancient, resilient chain will hold firm, ensuring the eternal people shall overcome.
Am Yisrael Chai!
Leah Garber is a senior vice president of JCC Association of North America and director of its Center for Israel Engagement in Jerusalem.
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