“I saw in the Holocaust people who died of fear and hunger, and now my first grandson is in danger,” testified Tsili Venkert, the grandmother of the abductee Omer Venkert, at a meeting in the Knesset to mark International Holocaust Day, “He has colitis and is in danger. He needs special food and medicine, and they will not give him what he deserves To him. This is my second Holocaust. Omar, waiting for you to come home.” Wenkert, who was born in 1941 in Chernobyl and stayed in the Jurin camp, returned with her family to Romania after the war, and immigrated to Israel in 1965 with her parents.
Wenkert’s words were said at a conference to mark International Holocaust Day, which was held in the Knesset today (Tuesday). The conference was organized by the Committee for Holocaust Survivors, headed by MK Merav Cohen (Yesh Atid).
According to the data of the Ministry of Social Affairs, published ahead of International Holocaust Day, today there are approximately 136,500 Holocaust survivors living in Israel. 2,500 Holocaust survivors experienced the Shiva events in October and about 2,000 were evacuated from their homes (of which 865 were evacuated from the south and 1,100 from the north).
The conference focuses on Holocaust survivors who experienced the events of October 7 first hand. The conference is attended by Holocaust survivors whose family members are in captivity and Holocaust survivors from the Gaza Strip who survived the Hamas attack, who testify to this and tell about their ways of coping. Also participating in the conference are heads of councils, ambassadors, ministers and Knesset members.
The last rally in Hatofim Square, which took place on Saturday night under the title “Never again like this now”, also referred to International Holocaust Day. People who are second generation survivors of the Holocaust spoke, and videos of the Righteous Among the Nations and their families were shown, calling on the residents of Gaza and the international community to act for the rescue of the abductees.
“I promised my grandchildren a new and good world, and I failed to deliver”
“I thought I had reached peace, but I woke up on October 7, and life will no longer be the same,” said Bela Haim, the grandmother of the late Yotam Haim, who was kidnapped by Hamas and killed when he was accidentally shot during an operation to rescue hostages. Haim was born in 1928 in Stock, Poland, and escaped With her mother and her sisters when she was one year old through the displaced persons camps in Germany. After the war she immigrated to Israel and settled in Kibbutz Gvolot. I was wrong. I promised my grandchildren a new and better world, and I failed to deliver. Again I choose life. We will remember them all, and we will learn that we are in our homeland and we have no other country.”
“Once again we see the silence of the enlightened world when Jews are murdered, and the condemnation when the Jews dare to defend themselves,” said Simcha Zohar Fenster, the grandfather of the kidnapped soldier Omer Natura. Fenster was born in 1941 in Slovakia, a town in the Tatras, and as a baby his family had to flee to Poland. His family was saved with the help of a Jew named Eduard Laufer, who came from Khofer as a gentile to the town where they were hiding. “Until this moment we have not received any news about Omar’s fate,” Fenster said, “We are doing everything we can to bring about his release with all the other abductees. Even then as Today our brides stand against us, but today there is a state for the Jews, and soldiers who fight for our independence.”
“We didn’t imagine that things like this would happen when we have a sovereign state,” said Hadassah Lazar, the sister of Shlomo Mansour Shurd, a Parhoud survivor who was kidnapped in Gaza, “he’s been gone for 116 days, and the world is silent, and anti-Semitism is on the rise.” Shlomo, who immigrated to Israel in 1951 and was one of the founders of Kibbutz Kissufim, is 86 years old: the oldest abductee.
