Holocaust survivors in Israel say the harrowing footage of hostages Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski—emaciated and hollow-eyed after 666 days in Hamas captivity—has resurfaced painful memories of Nazi concentration camps and the horrors of World War II.
Naftali Fürst, 93, a Slovak-born Auschwitz and Buchenwald survivor whose granddaughter survived the October 7 massacre at Kibbutz Kfar Aza, said the disturbing images released this weekend by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad took him decades back.
A Hamas propaganda video released Saturday shows hostage Evyatar David emaciated and digging his own grave
"Their sunken faces and skeletal frames took me straight to the camps," Fürst said. "I watched the videos with a heavy heart. I survived Auschwitz. I know the hunger. We got a slice of bread and thin soup. We ate grass when we could find it. I know humiliation. I know fear and horror.”
Fürst recalled meeting released hostage Eli Sharabi earlier this year at Poland’s March of the Living. “When I saw him, I was overcome. I looked at him and remembered how I looked after 1,033 days in captivity. We didn’t need words—we understood each other.”
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Hostage Evyatar David appears emaciated in a Hamas propaganda video released Saturday
Standing with 80 Holocaust survivors at the march, he embraced former Hamas hostages and said, “There is comfort, there is hope. We are proof that it’s possible to recover, to rebuild—and even to find happiness. But we can’t start healing until every hostage comes home. Silence is a moral stain.”
Holocaust survivor Devorah Weinstein, who fled her burning home as a five-year-old in Serbia, described the October 7 massacre as “a second Holocaust.”
“When I saw Kibbutz Be'eri's homes in flames, I saw myself. I was hungry for four years,” she said. “When I saw Evyatar’s image—just skin and bones—I could hardly breathe.”
“The Jewish people, after all they’ve endured, must not be indifferent,” she added. “This war began justly, but we must stop the suffering. The world must act to rescue the hostages. We had no hope of rescue. These hostages do. We must bring them home—before it’s too late.”
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Revital Yakin Krakovsky, deputy director of the international March of the Living, said the videos are an emotional trigger for survivors.
“The Holocaust was unique, but there’s no question that the hostages are enduring horrors that echo the past,” she said. “Hunger is hunger. Terror is terror. And the hatred behind the Nazis and Hamas hasn’t changed.”
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Hostage Rom Braslavski depicted in a Palestinian Islamic Jihad propaganda video released Thursday
She described the emotional connection formed between Holocaust survivors and freed hostages who walked side by side in the latest March of the Living.
“They understand each other without words,” she said. “People like Naftali Fürst show us it’s possible to rebuild. But as long as hostages remain in Gaza, our national recovery cannot begin.”