Gidon Lev
As a Holocaust survivor who is 88 years-young, these times in Israel are horrific. I was born in 1935. When I was only three years old, my family fled from our home in Karlovy Vary, in the former Czechoslovakia, to Prague, where we lived as refugees for three years before we were sent to Theresienstadt. I know what it feels like to flee in fear. I know what it feels like to feel powerless. For the past few days, I have been in a small kibbutz in the desert to try to stay safe from the rockets. Never in my lifetime would I believe I could be a refugee again. And this, in my own country!
I came to Israel in 1959 to Kibbutz Hazorea, where I worked in the dairy. I have raised five children in this country, that is my home. I have a son serving in the IDF near the Lebanon border, and I do not want to bury him! I have a grandson who is also serving near the border with Jordan.
In my opinion, what took place here in Israel on October 7th was a total return to the savage behavior of the Nazis and, in some instances, even worse! I understand that these Hamas terrorists sent pictures to the victim’s families from their own phones! I personally have a hard time accepting that such human beings actually exist.
Many people are comparing what happened on October 7th to the Holocaust because it’s the worst single attack on Jews since then. But there is a difference today and not a good one: In the 1930s and even in the 1940s not enough people spoke out for the Jews because they were brainwashed to not care about them and did not believe that a genocide was planned. Today, there is no excuse, we all know what happened in the Holocaust. Yet many non-Jews around the world are supporting Hamas. Some of them are the same people that before this time, would say #neveragain and yet now they are not standing with us. I ask you, what is their excuse? Peace was finally made with the Germans after the Nazis were defeated. I can only hope we can make peace with the Palestinians, who do, in my opinion, deserve a homeland too.