Hostage families, Holocaust survivors vow ‘Never Again’ at Holocaust Memorial Day event

Some thousand people are gathered for a “Zikaron BaSalon” gathering on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square.

The audience members are hearing testimonies given by Holocaust survivors and hostage family members at the event, organized by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

“Pain is pain, it doesn’t matter if I experienced it in Poland or now, on October 7th,” says Hannah Gofrit, a Holocaust survivor who immigrated to Israel in 1949.

After October 7, Gofrit began to share her story with young survivors of the Hamas massacre.

Organizers play a video on the screen above the panelists, depicting Gofrit with young children evacuated from Kibbutz Melfasim, one of the besieged communities on October 7, promising them that “there is a life after this.”

Omri Shtivi, the brother of Idan Shtivi who was kidnapped by Hamas from the Nova rave massacre, alludes to a deal with Hamas to return the hostages.

He asserts the hostages’ plight is not a political or even humanitarian issue, but a moral one, and adds that a “real leader” must opt to do the “moral thing over the just thing,” and work to bring the remaining captives home.