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Hamas Killing Spree Haunts Holocaust Survivors in ‘March of the Living’
Participants attend the annual “March of the Living” to commemorate the Holocaust at the former Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz, in Brzezinka near Oswiecim, Poland, May 2, 2019. Reuters/Kacper Pempel/File Photo
Israel’s Holocaust commemorations this year have a searing significance for six elderly survivors now deeply scarred by the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7 that sparked the ongoing Gaza war.
The killing and kidnapping spree by Palestinian terrorists on a Jewish holiday morning shook the sense of security of Israelis – not least, those who had witnessed the state emerge as a safe haven after the Nazi genocide.
For Bellha Haim, 86, the upheaval is especially profound.
Her grandson Yotam – like her, a resident of a village near the Gaza border – was taken hostage by Hamas and managed to escape, only to be accidentally shot dead by Israeli soldiers.
The trauma drove Haim to return to her native Poland, which she had fled with her family as a child during World War Two, and where she will on Monday take part in the “March of the Living” at the site of the Auschwitz death camp.
The annual ceremony is timed to coincide with Israel’s Holocaust memorial day.
“I never went back, and I wasn’t convinced to go back,” she said during a meeting with other survivors ahead of the trip.
“But this time, when they told me that they were connecting the Holocaust and what I call the ‘Holocaust of October 7′ – because then in the Holocaust we (Jews) were not a united people, we didn’t have a country, and suddenly this pride of mine that has been broken, my pride in my people and my country that was shattered in front of my eyes – I said, ‘This time I will break my oath and I will go out.’”
As a teenager, Yotam had taken part in the annual Auschwitz vigil and Haim said she saw the event as a chance for communion with him and other victims of the Hamas attack.
“I will go out in the name of Yotam, who marched there when he was in high school, and I will go out there to shout out the cry of the slain, of the babies, of all my good friends that I will never meet again,” she said.
ARABIC YELLING AND GUNFIRE
Among those joining her will be 90-year-old Daniel Louz, whose hometown Kibbutz Beeri lost a tenth of its residents to the Palestinian attackers.
In some ways, he said, that ordeal was worse for him than the European war, when he escaped Nazi round-ups in his native France although half his family perished in Poland.
After he awoke to the sound of Arabic yelling and gunfire, “I was constantly busy with surviving and figuring out what to do,” Louz said. “In France, as a child, I suffered all kinds of post-traumas that I’ve learned to cope with. But in Beeri, it was the first time that I felt the fear of death.”
A neighboring house was riddled with bullets. Louz’s was untouched. He says he imagined the souls of the six million Holocaust victims steering Hamas away from him. “They probably wanted me to be here to tell this story,” he said, weeping.
Other Holocaust survivors participating in the March of the Living include Smil Bercu Sacagiu, 87, whose home was hit by a rocket from Gaza, and Jacqueline Gliksman, 81, whose home was torched by a Palestinian infiltrator.
“What was left, and luckily the terrorist didn’t see it, is my grandchildren,” she said, referring to gold figurines on a necklace she was wearing. “That’s the only thing I have left.”
Before he was seized, Haim’s grandson left a text message: “They’re burning down my house. I smell gas. I’m scared.”
She said that reminded her of a Holocaust-era song in Yiddish, invoking centuries of pogroms, with the refrain “fire, Jews, fire”. A veteran campaigner for peace with the Palestinians, Haim said she would no longer pursue that activism.
“I’m not able to,” she said. “Now what interests me is only my people.”
The post Hamas Killing Spree Haunts Holocaust Survivors in ‘March of the Living’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Houthis Attack Another Oil Tanker in Red Sea
Illustrative. Houthi military helicopter flies over the Galaxy Leader cargo ship in the Red Sea in this photo released Nov. 20, 2023. Photo: Houthi Military Media/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – British naval security firm Ambrey said on Saturday it had received information that a Panama-flagged crude oil tanker was attacked in the Red Sea off Yemen’s Mokha.
Ambrey said a radio communication indicated the vessel was hit by a missile and that there was a fire onboard. It did not provide details of the communication.
Yemen’s Houthi jihadists, who controls the most populous parts of Yemen and are aligned with Iran, has staged attacks on ships in the waters off the country for months in solidarity with the Palestinians.
Months of Houthi attacks in the Red Sea have disrupted global shipping, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys around Southern Africa, and stoking fears that the Israel-Hamas war could spread to destabilize the wider Middle East.
The post Houthis Attack Another Oil Tanker in Red Sea first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Further Ramps Up Executions, Hanging At Least 7
Preparations for a public hanging in Iran. Photo: Wiki Commons.
i24 News – At least seven people, including two women, were hanged in Iran on Saturday as the Islamic Republic has further intensified its use of capital punishment, a monitor said.
The Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) said it has tallied at least 223 executions this year, with at least 50 so far in May alone. A new surge began following the end of the Persian New Year and Ramadan holidays in April, with 115 people including six women hanged since then.
Second only to China in the overall number of executions, Iran carries out more recorded executions of women than any other country.
Iran last year carried out more hangings than in any year since 2015, according to human right monitors, which accuse the mullah regime of using capital punishment as a means to instill fear in the wake of protests that erupted in autumn 2022.
Rights group say the death penalty is dispassionately used against Iran’s ethnic and religious minorities, such as Kurds, Turks, Arabs and Balochis.
Iran has been roiled by occasional bursts of unrest since the death of Mahsa Amini in September 16, 2022. The 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman fell into a coma and died three days later following her arrest by the morality police for allegedly violating the Islamic dress code.
The incident unleashed years of pent-up anger over issues from tightening social and political controls to economic hardships, triggering the clerical establishment’s worst legitimacy crisis in decades.
The post Iran Further Ramps Up Executions, Hanging At Least 7 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Parents of German-Israeli Woman Whose Body Found in Gaza Thankful to Have a Grave
Ricarda Louk and Nissim Louk, the parents of German-Israeli Shani Louk who was killed in the October 7 attack by Palestinian Islamist terrorist group Hamas, speak to Reuters from their home in Srigim-Li On, Israel, May 18, 2024, after Louk’s body was retrieved from Gaza. Photo: REUTERS/Rami Amichay
German-Israeli Shani Louk’s father says that finally laying his daughter to rest will be a gift after her body was recovered from Gaza, months after she was killed in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.
Louk, a 23-year-old tattoo artist, was celebrating with friends at the Nova music festival just inside Israel before it was attacked by terrorists from the Palestinian terror group. Her body was soon seen in a video, slung across the back of a pickup truck, surrounded by terrorists and paraded through Gaza.
On Friday, the Israeli military informed her parents, Nissim and Ricarda Louk, that their daughter’s body had been found by Israeli commandos in Gaza. Nissim Louk said that to be sure, he had viewed photos.
“We also saw the tattoos on her hands,” he said on Saturday. “Now she will have her own place next to us and we can go there whenever we want. And she can rest.”
He said the funeral will be held on Sunday, which is Ricarda Louk’s birthday.
“I think Shani said ‘let’s give my mother a birthday present and let’s go back and be close to her,’” he added.
Having Shani’s grave nearby would be a comfort, said Ricarda Louk.
“Maybe we’ll find more peace,” she said.
Nissim Louk said there was also solace knowing Shani was doing what she loved best before she died and probably did not suffer. She was pronounced dead by Israeli authorities at the end of October, based on findings in the area of the Nova rave, where more than 360 people were shot, bludgeoned or burned to death.
Videos of a smiling Shani at the party, before the attack, surfaced in the following weeks.
“She was dancing the whole night. She was so happy,” Nissim Louk said. “She never thought that there is evil in the world because she was a free spirit. She saw it only for a couple of seconds.”
Around 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 abducted in the Hamas-led attack. Israel responded by launching a military offensive to try to eradicate Hamas that is now in its eight month.
Ricarda Louk said she was pained by what she sees as ignorance and misinformation displayed at some U.S. campus protests against Israel‘s war in Gaza.
“It’s horrible for us to see,” she said. “We can tell you from our own experience. We lost our daughter in this massacre.”
“There is no resistance that can justify what happened here,” she said.
The post Parents of German-Israeli Woman Whose Body Found in Gaza Thankful to Have a Grave first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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