Tzvi Cohen
Holocaust Survivor,
Theresienstadt Concentration Camp
“When I saw the hostages Ohad Ben Ami, Eli Sharabi, and Or Levy released from Hamas captivity, it was painful for every Israeli to watch, but for me, it was unbearable. They looked like ‘Muselmann’ – a term used among Jewish concentration camp prisoners during the Holocaust to describe someone on the brink of death. They appeared like walking skeletons, with their bones protruding visibly – exactly like the Jewish prisoners who were liberated from the concentration camps during the Holocaust.
When I saw them being brought onto a stage in Gaza and forced to “sign” their “release documents,” I simply broke down in tears. It was so humiliating. It took me back 80 years to my own liberation from the Theresienstadt concentration camp.
Not many people know the history of the ‘Freedom Train’ that left Theresienstadt heading west instead of east. On February 5, 1945, 1,200 Jews from the Theresienstadt concentration camp boarded a train bound for neutral Switzerland, saving them from certain death in the Holocaust. Fortunately, I was among those 1,200 who were given a second chance at life.
When I saw the signing ceremony of the released hostages, I started crying, and my three daughters, who were with me that day, didn’t understand what had happened. My whole life, I suppressed the memory of my own humiliating signing ceremony, just before I boarded the Freedom Train from Theresienstadt to Switzerland – I was forced to sign a document affirming that the Nazis had treated me ‘well’ during my captivity in Theresienstadt. In doing so, I was expected to deny the starvation, the relentless humiliation, the abuse, and the cold-blooded murders I had witnessed during my time in Theresienstadt. I was supposed to pretend that none of it had ever happened.
There is physical humiliation, and there is psychological humiliation – and sometimes, the latter can be far worse.
Before we boarded the train, we underwent a selection process where the Germans decided who would be allowed to leave and who would remain in the camp. The Nazis sat at a long table on a raised platform, and we had to pass before them. As I walked past, a Nazi officer asked me, “It wasn’t so bad, was it?”
For two terrible years, I had been a prisoner in a concentration camp. There, I lost my grandparents, Gustav and Ethel Heller. There, I lost my humanity and was reduced to a subhuman state. And at that moment – at my so-called “liberation” – a Nazi officer dared to ask me, “It wasn’t so bad, was it?”
I had to sign a degrading document stating that the Nazis had treated me well during my time in the camp. To me, it felt like ‘adding insult to injury’. It was one of the most painful and humiliating moments I experienced during the Holocaust. Now, even my personal truth and the historical truth are being taken from me.
The Nazis were able to murder six million Jews because they succeeded in crushing them mentally. They made you feel like nothing more than an insect that could be crushed at any moment. Humiliation is a terrible thing. It hurts more than beatings and more than hunger. When your human dignity is stripped away, you become less than human. You walk like sheep to the slaughter. When you are humiliated to the point of nothingness, that is when you break.
I remember that ten SS men oversaw the transport of me and another thousand Jews from Berlin. In the concentration camps themselves, how many guards were responsible for thousands of prisoners? The Jews could have tried to rebel, but most didn’t – because the Nazis had broken us mentally and spiritually.
I believe that Hamas knew the Nazis forced Jews to sign release documents after the Holocaust. This aligns with Holocaust denial and the denial of October 7th. We must do everything we can to preserve historical memory and prevent deniers from spreading their lies. To deny the Holocaust is to deny everything I went through – the starvation, the murder of my family, the horrors I survived.
I am grateful to say that, despite the Nazis’ attempts to crush me mentally and spiritually, they did not succeed.
After the Holocaust, I immigrated to Israel with my parents, and we settled in Kibbutz Ma’abarot. We rebuilt our lives. My parents gave me a younger brother, Avi, who joined our family.
I lived a full and mostly happy life – I built a family of my own, and today, I have children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. That is the true victory. Just as I and other Holocaust survivors managed to rebuild our lives, I am sure that the hostages who survived Hamas captivity will find their way back to life.
In my eyes, the word Holocaust is sacred, and it cannot be used in relation to the massacre of October 7.
The Holocaust is a uniquely horrifying term that describes the systematic and sickening murder of six million Jews under Nazi rule. It must be used only in its historical context – otherwise, we are downgrading its unique meaning. October 7 was a horrific disaster – a hell on earth. It was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Even worse, the massacre happened in the very state that was founded to protect the Jewish people. But still, in my view, as terrible as it was, we cannot call this massacre a Holocaust.”