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My Grandfather’s Journey From the Holocaust to Israel, and My Promise to Him
People with Israeli flags attend the International March of the Living at the former Auschwitz Nazi German death camp, in Brzezinka near Oswiecim, Poland, May 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
I’m a third-generation child of Holocaust survivors. Almost all of my family from my father’s side was gassed to death in the Auschwitz gas chambers.
Nearly 20 years ago, I visited the death camps where my family perished. There, at the gas chambers in Auschwitz, I recited their names out loud to ‘elevate their souls’ (L’iluy Neshama). As we believe in Judaism, the soul never dies, and we can help elevate a soul to a higher place in its journey to the afterlife, with good deeds, prayers, and remembrance.
As I called out my family members’ names in the devil’s “death factory,” it suddenly hit me hard that right where I was standing, millions of Jews, my family included, had been reduced to only a number tattooed on their cold flesh, as well as God’s arm. They were stripped of their identity and former selves and transformed into a combination of “digits” — living “codes” to humanity’s locked heart. There I was, saying their names. Who they really were. What they were before true evil took them away
My grandparents survived the Holocaust and immigrated to Israel. As a child, I used to sleep over at my grandparents’ little house on their farm. I remember waking up in the middle of the night to my beloved grandfather screaming in Hungarian; he was haunted by the nightmare of his 4-year-old sister burning alive and turning into black ashes. To his very last day, he couldn’t sleep without night terrors of what had happened to his family at the hands of the Nazis and their many helpers. I remember myself just standing there. A little girl, frozen at the entrance of his room, looking at him and crying silently as my grandfather shouted, sweated, and writhed from real horror dreams. Flashbacks of the Holocaust, which he survived but never escaped.
Tzlil, age 4, with her grandfather Nachman Berko circa 1993.
The Holocaust runs in my blood. It’s a significant part of the very essence of who I am. It’s intertwined with my soul, at the very core of my being.
I promised my grandfather that we will defend what he and all of our beloved Holocaust survivors fought for. We will never give up, and we will never let go. We are proud Jews with a strong moral army and we will keep my promise to him. Am Yisrael Chai (the nation of Israel lives).
I wrote the poem below (translated from Hebrew) for my brave grandfather, Nachman Berko, may his memory be a blessing, and to my extended family that left our world through a chimney as the blue sky turned black.
That Is What I Am
By Tzlil Berko
I am childhood lost
I am wrenched away
I am rupture
I am a flower black as coal from the inferno
I am a nameless number
I am years without time
I am rattling bones sent to be inventoried
I am the dawn that never rises
Indeed, that is what I am
I am beyond my end
I am the blackness of night
I am the utter collapse of the naked sky
I am a bottomless pit from which there is no return
I am an empty shell
I am silence
I am also a wail
I am the dust of the earth
I am the ashes of cremation
I am the dawn that never rises
Indeed, that is what I am
I am beyond my end
That is what I am
Me, not you
That is I who looks to the sky through a chimney
That is I whose four year old sister screams to him
To save her from the flames
That is I who lives in a nightmare even after waking
That is what I am
Me, not you
A man who’s no longer a man
He is a ghost
Just a mere reflection
Stripped of flesh and form
An alien shadow that does not know
Its very own self in the mirror
That is what I am
An empty shell
The fragile wrapper of a tattooed broken soul
And you?
You are the man I once was
A man from before
Before the Holocaust.
Tzlil Berko is an experienced security consultant and entrepreneur. She is also an avid writer of poetry, song lyrics, short stories, scripts, and more. Tzlil has played a major role in conceiving and writing with her parents, Dr. Anat and Dr. Reuven Berko, a TV psychological thriller and a family melodrama that draws on Dr. Anat Berko’s books and the family’s remarkable personal story. Follow Tzlil on LinkedIn.
A version of this article was originally published by the Investigative Project on Terrorism.
The post My Grandfather’s Journey From the Holocaust to Israel, and My Promise to Him first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.