Families of Israeli hostages join commemorations at Auschwitz

By Kuba Stezycki

OSWIECIM, Poland, - Families of Israelis held hostage by Hamas called on Monday for remembrance, rejection of antisemitism and the release of their loved ones ahead of the commemoration of the liberation of the Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in 1945 on Monday.

Auschwitz survivors were being joined by world leaders to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the camp, set up by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland in World War Two to murder European Jews in pursuit of racist ideology.

Hamas militants seized 253 hostages on Oct. 7, 2023, in a rampage through Israeli communities that killed 1,200 people, triggering a relentless Israeli assault that has laid waste to Gaza, nominally run by Hamas, and killed more than 47,000 Palestinians.

Several hostages have been freed this month as part of a multi-phased ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas that includes the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

Omer Lifshitz, 51, son of Yocheved, kidnapped from the Nir Oz kibbutz and released 17 days after the attack, and of Oded, 84, who is still being held, told reporters that he was visiting Auschwitz for the first time.

"My father is a hostage, a Polish citizen in captivity as hostage," he said. "It's very hard because ... what's happened in 7th October is feeling like another Holocaust or pogrom in the kibbutz Nir Oz ...

"People must learn that can't happen ever again. It's very important to people to know what happened. Learn it and learn from that that things like that cannot happen again. We must hope for a better world."

Yasmin Magal, a 26-year-old medical student, said that her cousin Omer Neutra, a 22-year-old American-Israeli soldier kidnapped and killed in Gaza, had been the grandson of Holocaust survivors.

"We need to make sure that this isn't forgotten, that the 90 remaining hostages are freed," she said. "The live ones to recover, and the dead to a proper burial in our homeland."

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