At Auschwitz, families of hostages call for their release
Relatives join world leaders to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day, on 80th anniversary of liberation of death camp

Families of Israelis held hostage by Hamas called on Monday for remembrance, rejection of antisemitism and the release of their loved ones ahead of the commemoration of the 1945 liberation of the Nazi Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp on Monday.
Auschwitz survivors were being joined by world leaders to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the camp, set up by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland in World War II to murder European Jews in pursuit of racist ideology.
Hamas terrorists seized 251 hostages on October 7, 2023, in a rampage through Israeli communities in which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were also murdered.
Seven hostages have been freed this month as part of a multi-phased ceasefire deal between Israel and the terror group that includes the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
Omer Lifshitz, 51, son of Yocheved, who was kidnapped from the Nir Oz kibbutz and released 17 days after the attack, and of Oded, 84, who is still being held, told reporters that he was visiting Auschwitz for the first time.
“My father is a hostage, a Polish citizen in captivity as hostage,” he said. “It’s very hard because… what happened on October 7 is feeling like another Holocaust or pogrom in the kibbutz Nir Oz….
“People must learn that can’t happen ever again. It’s very important to people to know what happened. Learn it and learn from that that things like that cannot happen again. We must hope for a better world.”
Yasmin Magal, a 26-year-old medical student, said that her cousin Omer Neutra, a 22-year-old American-Israeli soldier kidnapped and murdered in Gaza, was the grandson of Holocaust survivors.
“We need to make sure that this isn’t forgotten, that the 90 remaining hostages are freed,” she said. “The live ones to recover, and the dead to a proper burial in our homeland.”
Eighty-seven of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 40 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the body of an IDF soldier who was killed in 2014.