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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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Israel to Send Delegation to Qatar for Gaza Ceasefire Talks
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference in Jerusalem, Sept. 2, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS
Israel has decided to send a delegation to Qatar for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal, an Israeli official said, reviving hopes of a breakthrough in negotiations to end the almost 21-month war.
Palestinian group Hamas said on Friday it had responded to a US-backed Gaza ceasefire proposal in a “positive spirit,” a few days after US President Donald Trump said Israel had agreed “to the necessary conditions to finalize” a 60-day truce.
The Israeli negotiation delegation will fly to Qatar on Sunday, the Israeli official, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter, told Reuters.
But in a sign of the potential challenges still facing the two sides, a Palestinian official from a militant group allied with Hamas said concerns remained over humanitarian aid, passage through the Rafah crossing in southern Israel to Egypt and clarity over a timetable for Israeli troop withdrawals.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is due to meet Trump in Washington on Monday, has yet to comment on Trump’s announcement, and in their public statements Hamas and Israel remain far apart.
Netanyahu has repeatedly said Hamas must be disarmed, a position the terrorist group, which is thought to be holding 20 living hostages, has so far refused to discuss.
Israeli media said on Friday that Israel had received and was reviewing Hamas’ response to the ceasefire proposal.
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Tucker Carlson Says to Air Interview with President of Iran
Tucker Carlson speaks on July 18, 2024 during the final day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Photo: Jasper Colt-USA TODAY via Reuters Connect
US conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson said in an online post on Saturday that he had conducted an interview with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, which would air in the next day or two.
Carlson said the interview was conducted remotely through a translator, and would be published as soon as it was edited, which “should be in a day or two.”
Carlson said he had stuck to simple questions in the interview, such as, “What is your goal? Do you seek war with the United States? Do you seek war with Israel?”
“There are all kinds of questions that I didn’t ask the president of Iran, particularly questions to which I knew I could get an not get an honest answer, such as, ‘was your nuclear program totally disabled by the bombing campaign by the US government a week and a half ago?’” he said.
Carlson also said he had made a third request in the past several months to interview Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will be visiting Washington next week for talks with US President Donald Trump.
Trump said on Friday he would discuss Iran with Netanyahu at the White House on Monday.
Trump said he believed Tehran’s nuclear program had been set back permanently by recent US strikes that followed Israel’s attacks on the country last month, although Iran could restart it at a different location.
Trump also said Iran had not agreed to inspections of its nuclear program or to give up enriching uranium. He said he would not allow Tehran to resume its nuclear program, adding that Iran did want to meet with him.
Pezeshkian said last month Iran does not intend to develop nuclear weapons but will pursue its right to nuclear energy and research.
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Hostage Families Reject Partial Gaza Seal, Demand Release of All Hostages
Demonstrators hold signs and pictures of hostages, as relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas protest demanding the release of all hostages in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Itai Ron
i24 News – As Israeli leaders weigh the contours of a possible partial ceasefire deal with Hamas, the families of the 50 hostages still held in Gaza issued an impassioned public statement this weekend, condemning any agreement that would return only some of the abductees.
In a powerful message released Saturday, the Families Forum for the Return of Hostages denounced what they call the “beating system” and “cruel selection process,” which, they say, has left families trapped in unbearable uncertainty for 638 days—not knowing whether to hope for reunion or prepare for mourning.
The group warned that a phased or selective deal—rumored to be under discussion—would deepen their suffering and perpetuate injustice. Among the 50 hostages, 22 are believed to be alive, and 28 are presumed dead.
“Every family deserves answers and closure,” the Forum said. “Whether it is a return to embrace or a grave to mourn over—each is sacred.”
They accused the Israeli government of allowing political considerations to prevent a full agreement that could have brought all hostages—living and fallen—home long ago. “It is forbidden to conform to the dictates of Schindler-style lists,” the statement read, invoking a painful historical parallel.
“All of the abductees could have returned for rehabilitation or burial months ago, had the government chosen to act with courage.”
The call for a comprehensive deal comes just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares for high-stakes talks in Washington and as indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas are expected to resume in Doha within the next 24 hours, according to regional media reports.
Hamas, for its part, issued a statement Friday confirming its readiness to begin immediate negotiations on the implementation of a ceasefire and hostage release framework.
The Forum emphasized that every day in captivity poses a mortal risk to the living hostages, and for the deceased, a danger of being lost forever. “The horror of selection does not spare any of us,” the statement said. “Enough with the separation and categories that deepen the pain of the families.”
In a planned public address near Begin Gate in Tel Aviv, families are gathering Saturday evening to demand that the Israeli government accept a full-release deal—what they describe as the only “moral and Zionist” path forward.
“We will return. We will avenge,” the Forum concluded. “This is the time to complete the mission.”
As of now, the Israeli government has not formally responded to Hamas’s latest statement.
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