KIBBUTZ MEFLASIM, Israel (AP) — As Hamas militants entered southern Israel on Oct. 7, the militant group that rules the Gaza Strip carried out the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust.
As a result, this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, which begins in Israel on Sunday evening, carries a heavier burden than usual for many Jews around the world.
For Judith Tzamir, a Holocaust survivor from Germany who moved to Israel in 1964, the horrors of October 7 prompted her to mark the grim holiday with a pilgrimage she had long avoided: she will visit Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp in Poland, visit.
Tzamir, whose kibbutz repelled Hamas attackers on October 7, will join 55 other Holocaust survivors from around the world and about 10,000 others taking part in the March of the Living. The event recreates the two-mile (three-kilometer) march from Auschwitz to Birkenau, where about a million Jews were killed by Nazi Germany.
The event, now in its 36th year, typically attracts thousands of participants, including Holocaust survivors and Jewish students, business leaders and politicians. This year, Israeli hostages released from captivity in Gaza and families whose relatives are still held captive will also join the march.
“I don’t know if the world will listen, but even for myself it’s important,” said Tzamir, who had declined previous invitations to Auschwitz. “Remember that anti-Semitism still exists and there are still people who kill solely for religious reasons.”
Holocaust Remembrance Day, observed on the anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, is traditionally an opportunity for Israelis to gather and listen to the testimonies of survivors.
It’s one of the darkest days of the year – highlighted by a two-minute siren as traffic stops and people stand at attention in memory of the victims. Memorial ceremonies will be held throughout the day, during which the names of the victims will be recited. As Israel’s national Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem tries to stay away from politics, this year’s ceremony will feature an empty yellow chair in solidarity with Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.
In 1948, when Tzamir was 4 1/2 years old, the people she knew as her parents dressed her in a light blue dress with black shoes and white socks and took her to a square in Berlin. She remembers clutching her doll, Yula, as they revealed that they were not her parents and that the woman standing in front of them was her birth mother.
Tzamir’s mother had hidden her Jewish identity during World War II by serving in the German army. She gave birth to Judith in a hospital run by nuns in 1943, leaving Judith behind to save her life. Tzamir, then called Donata, was placed in a foster family. She had no idea she was Jewish until she met her mother.
Sixteen years later, while in college, Tzamir went to Meflasim, a kibbutz in southern Israel on the border with Gaza, as part of a student exchange program. After her studies, she returned to Meflasim, fell in love with a new immigrant from Argentina who also lived on the kibbutz, stayed and raised four children.
On October 7, Tzamir once again faced the possibility of losing her home. Hamas militants poured across the border from the Gaza Strip and attacked towns, military bases and a music festival in southern Israel. Meflasim was luckier than many other kibbutzim in the area, where militants burned homes and left much destruction in their wake.
The militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 250 others that day. The attack sparked Israel’s invasion of Gaza, with the death toll rising to over 34,500 people and forcing around 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents from their homes, according to local health authorities. The high death toll and humanitarian crisis have led to genocide accusations against Israel at the International Court of Justice – a charge that Israel angrily rejects.
Hamas has said its attack was directed against the Israeli occupation and blockade of Gaza, and pro-Palestinian activists deny any anti-Semitic motives in their opposition to the Israeli military offensive. For most Jewish Israelis, global protests calling for a boycott of Israel and questioning the country’s right to exist often result in anti-Semitism.
On the day of the attack, Meflasim’s emergency task force managed to detain most of the Hamas fighters outside the kibbutz zone. Many residents remained in safe rooms for almost 24 hours until the Israeli army was able to evacuate them the next day.
Although there were no fatalities in Meflasim, its approximately 800 residents were ordered to leave the area, along with more than 120,000 Israelis living just a few kilometers from the borders with Gaza and Lebanon. Meflasim, Tzamir’s steady anchor after a childhood of turmoil and uncertainty, was no longer a safe haven.
Many Meflasim residents have been living in a hotel north of Tel Aviv for the past seven months and are unsure about the next steps, although Tzamir and several others hope to return to the kibbutz in June.
Tzamir said the Oct. 7 attack brought back all sorts of memories of her childhood trauma. She was able to function during the day, but when she fell asleep her dreams were full of blood, death and fire, visions that reminded her of the bombings she had witnessed as a child in Germany.
According to Israel’s Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs, Tzamir is one of about 2,000 Holocaust survivors in Israel who were forced to evacuate due to the war in Gaza. The ministry estimates that there are 132,000 Holocaust survivors living in Israel.
Tzamir was director of her kibbutz for 13 years and therefore knows every resident. She said some families may never return to Meflasim, which is just 1.4 kilometers from the Gaza border. Explosions from Gaza echo in the buildings and a sense of security is difficult to regain.
But it was never a question for her, she said.
“I’m 80 years old, I don’t want to lose my home again,” said Tzamir as her husband Ran was busy tending a garden full of succulents and flowers just before their flight to Poland. “We come back.”