“My real Holocaust was when they kidnapped Omer.” Tonight marks the beginning of Yom HaShoah — Holocaust Remembrance Day. A day to remember the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis. A day to honor the innocent lives taken simply for being Jewish, and to reflect on the cost of not having a Jewish state to protect us. On this day, we share the stories of those whose lives were stolen, and those who survived, like Tzili Wenkert. Tzili is the grandmother of released hostage Omer Wenkert. She’s 83 years old, and a Holocaust survivor. She was just six weeks old when the Nazis deported her family to a ghetto. She remembers living in a tiny room with five family members. Her parents had to sell everything — clothes, jewelry — just to survive. She recalls how death was everywhere. “People died from hunger, disease, cold, shelling. They were sent to forced labor.” Despite the horrors she and her family endured under the Nazis, Tzili often says: “I may be a Holocaust survivor, but my real Holocaust was when they kidnapped Omer.” During Omer’s captivity, Tzili never stopped fighting for his release, until the day she held him in her arms again. “When I hugged him in the hospital, it felt like I had a new grandson. It was like hugging him as a newborn. You could see his bones through his shirt. I told myself, ‘Where there are bones, there will be flesh.’” “And now, he’s already doing better. He knows how to smile, how to laugh. He’s not withdrawn — he’s meeting people and friends again.” “When I got to the hospital, a doctor asked if I was a Holocaust survivor. I said yes. He told me, ‘Omer’s like you — he’s strong.’” “Maybe it runs in the family,” she mused. “But I was a baby — everyone protected me. He went through something far worse. He’s fully aware. They beat him, isolated him, starved him. But he didn’t break. He doesn’t complain. For him, it was like a test of strength.” Omer, like Tzili, survived and overcame the worst of what humanity can do. Hamas, like the Nazis before them, tried to destroy the Jewish people. They tried to break us with the most unimaginable horrors. But they failed. Tzili and Omer won. Am Yisrael Chai.
See Tweet