Survivors: Then and Now

March 11, 2025

by: Zoë McHenry, BFP Writer

I found myself sitting on an old couch, eating pierogi (Russian dumplings), listening to the life story of an elderly woman and her husband. They were real.

Now, that might sound like a strange statement, but for a young American adult fresh out her teenage years, the Holocaust and its survivors used to be confined to black-and-white photos in history books. Yet here they were, in living color, sharing their stories of miraculous survival. 

The Holocaust is not bound to the dusty pages of history books. The survivors of that time are still with us, bearing the scars of unimaginable loss while enduring fresh pain today. On October 7, Hamas murdered, injured and kidnapped Holocaust survivors. Thousands have been forced to hide out in bomb shelters, while many more have been displaced from their homes; a cruel repetition of the past.

Bookended by war, their lives are living proof that humanity repeatedly inflicts upon others what no one would ever wish upon themselves. Every survivor’s story is a warning—and a plea to a world that seems to have forgotten.

Listen to the voices of these Holocaust survivors and feel their pain, so that perhaps the hatred and violence inflicted on them will never again arrive at our doors.

“I never thought that as a Holocaust survivor, I would need to hide for my life again. I was shocked to see that eight decades after the Holocaust, the Star of David symbol has been painted once again on Jewish homes all across Europe and the United States to target and frighten them amid the devastating October 7 massacre. It echoes the antisemitic persecution I suffered as a child…In the Kibbutz Be’eri massacre, I know every single person, every single member of my kibbutz [collective community] and their children. For me, it was a second holocaust.”

—Haim Raanan, 89, originally from Hungary, now a resident of Kibbutz Be’eri

“I remember the morning [of October 7], when the attack began. I was alone at home and I was veryscared…The whole time, I was afraid that the terrorists would enter my home. I went back to my childhood, to the time of the war, and I did not understand how this could happen to us here…I thought it was a war that Israel would never get out of, that it would be like World War II, and that they would take over the country,“

—Raisa Matato, 88, originally from Dagestan, used to live in Sderot

“If Hitler didn’t succeed in killing me, they [Hamas] won’t either.” 

—Eva Erban, 95, originally from Czechoslovakia, survived Auschwitz and the death march, now lives in Ashkelon

“I survived the Nazis in the concentration camps; my entire family perished. From the depths of despair, I clung to the earth and planted seeds in Zion…But suddenly, on October 7, 2023, from between the evil barbed wires, emerged the horrifying scenes of fire, dust, murder and the terrible massacre of innocent lives, reaching me once again. My dearest grandson was murdered while protecting his wife and their one-month-old daughter. And my dearest granddaughter and her husband were slaughtered while defending their ten-month-old twins. Once again, I find myself exhausted, in despair, sinking. And I have no more land to hold onto.”

—Yosef Winner, 97

“I opened the door, went out, and saw my neighbor’s daughter lying in a pool of blood. I lifted my eyes and saw a Hamas terrorist standing 10 meters away from me. He looked me in the eyes and pointed his gun at my face…In my heart, I prayed, and slowly turned around—and went back to my house. I was sure he would shoot me. I remember that as I walked, I thought: ‘God, I have lived a full life. Take me, I’m old. Just make them leave the children alone. Save their lives.’ It didn’t help. My neighbor’s two children were murdered that same morning…I’m tired, exhausted, but when I close my eyes, I see the terrorist’s eyes, get frightened and wake up.” 

—Ella Panomarov, 87, from Ofakim 

“Shlomo was born in Iraq and lived through the Farhud [a pogrom carried out against the Jewish population of Baghdad, Iraq, in June 1941]. Arabs murdered, raped[and] abused babies, kidnapped, beheaded, looted and burned shops that had been marked with red paint ahead of time. It was the Kristallnacht of the Jews of Iraq. Shlomo saw things that stayed with him all his life. We did not imagine such things would return in our sovereign state… [Shlomo] is going through another Holocaust in his old age.”

— Hadassah Lazar, 70, originally from Iraq and sister of Hamas’s oldest hostage, Shlomo Mansour, 86, a Holocaust survivor. On February 11, it was revealed that Hamas murdered Shlomo and his body kidnapped to Gaza.

“He sent me a message, and [now] his voice now echoes around the world: ‘Grandma, I’m a little stressed. There are terrorists in the kibbutz. I’m okay. Take care of yourself; it can happen anywhere.’ Around 9:45 a.m., I saw a message from him: ‘They’re burning my house. I’m afraid I’ll suffocate.’ I immediately thought of it as the second Holocaust. I didn’t wait for someone else to say it. I remembered the burning towns I had heard about in stories, and the terrible song ‘The Town is Burning’ came to mind in Yiddish, and I started singing it to myself.”

—Bella Haim, 86, originally from Poland and a resident of Kibbutz Gvulot, is the grandmother of Yotam Haim, who Hamas kidnapped to Gaza and who was later mistakenly killed by IDF soldiers.

“I thought, ‘What, is this the same period of the Nazis?’ It can’t be! The dragging of the people of Be’eri, Nir Oz, Kfar Aza, Kissufim, Holit. It’s the same thing. It reminded me of the same thing…I was very, very unwell. I even felt a feeling, it’s hard to explain, of disgust, of fear, of terrible memories.” 

—Gad Partok, 93, originally from Tusinsia now resident of Ashkelon

“I have a hearing problem and I was not at all aware of what was happening outside. Only the next day, they told me that terrorists had moved through this neighborhood. Luckily, I didn’t see them, otherwise, I would have died of fear on the spot. The stories I heard about what happened here reminded me of stories from World War II. There are still alarms in Sderot and I’m scared. When I’m alone, it’s even worse. I’m really shaking with fear.”

—Rosa Shotsky, 88, originally from the former Soviet Union, now resident of Sderot

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