Shocking hostage footage from Gaza revives Holocaust-era nightmares for survivors, who say the scenes echo the starvation, humiliation, and fear they endured eight decades ago.
The newly released hostage videos from Gaza have pierced Israel’s collective heart — and for Holocaust survivors, they have ripped open old wounds from humanity’s darkest chapter.
“These men’s bodies are painfully thin — almost Muselmänner — their eyes terrified and hollow, their faces carved with despair and hopelessness,” said Israel Shaked, a survivor liberated from the Nazi Mauthausen concentration camp. Speaking through the International March of the Living, Shaked drew a chilling parallel: “These images take me back to those dark days — to hell, to hunger, to orphanhood, to the constant fear.”
The footage shows Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski, abducted by Hamas terrorists from the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023. Frail, emaciated, and tearful, their suffering is evident. One clip shows David digging what he says is his own grave — a cruel, Nazi-style humiliation tactic that sears itself into the viewer’s memory.
“I know hunger up close,” said Naftali Hurst, who survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald. “In the camps, we ate grass when we could find it. The starvation, the humiliation — the stripping away of every shred of human dignity — I know this fear.”
The videos have horrified Israelis and fueled urgent calls for a hostage deal. At rallies across the nation, relatives pleaded for the release of the 50 remaining captives, including at least 20 believed to be alive.
“Evyatar is my little brother, a kind, gentle soul whose only ‘crime’ was celebrating peace at a music festival,” said his brother Ilay. “The thought of his pain, his hunger, his terror in those dark tunnels — it haunts my every waking moment.”
