Former hostages held by Hamas in Gaza and relatives of abductees gathered at the Nazi Auschwitz-Birkenau camp on Wednesday to take part in the annual March of the Living, alongside Holocaust survivors, released captives and bereaved families.
At the memorial crematorium, released hostage Eli Sharabi stood with his brother Sharon Sharabi. “We will never forget or forgive,” Sharabi declared. “The land of Israel is a reminder that the Jewish nation will last forever. We sanctify life, not death. And the unwritten contract between the State of Israel and its citizens is to bring back the 59 hostages now to their homeland and for burial in their land.”
Give the gift of hope
We practice what we preach:
accurate, fearless journalism. But we can't do it alone.
- On the ground in Gaza, Syria, Israel, Egypt, Pakistan, and more
- Our program trained more than 100 journalists
- Calling out fake news and reporting real facts
- On the ground in Gaza, Syria, Israel, Egypt, Pakistan, and more
- Our program trained more than 100 journalists
- Calling out fake news and reporting real facts
Join us.
Support The Media Line. Save democracy.
Holocaust survivor Michael Kupershtein, grandfather of current captive Bar Kupershtein, drew parallels between Nazi genocide and Hamas’s October 7 attacks, saying the same hatred that fueled the Holocaust “caused children, women and men to be murdered” last year. His wife, Faina Kupershtein, added that their grandson endures “almost the same kind of torture that Holocaust survivors experienced.”
President Isaac Herzog led Israel’s official delegation at Auschwitz, where he was received by Polish President Andrzej Duda. Together, they signed the visitors’ book, laid a wreath at the Black Wall—where Nazi executions were carried out—and toured the Holocaust exhibition at Block 27.
Standing beside President Duda, Herzog declared: “Although after the Holocaust we vowed, ‘Never again,’ today, even as we stand here, the souls of dozens of Jews again yearn within a cage… 59 of our brothers and sisters are held by terrorist murderers in Gaza. The return of the hostages is a universal human imperative.”