Originally published in The Times of Israel
Israel marked its annual Holocaust Remembrance Day today with a series of ceremonies both in the country and in Poland, with grief for the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and laments over the plight of dozens of people held hostage in the Gaza Strip.
Holocaust survivors drew parallels between their experiences and the events of October 7 2023, when the Palestinian terror group Hamas led over 5 000 terrorists in a devastating invasion of southern Israel. The terrorists slaughtered 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 as hostages, of whom 59 are still in captivity.
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Speaking at a ceremony held at the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp, President Isaac Herzog noted that while everyone said never again after the Holocaust, there are now 59 hostages in Gaza.
The day’s formal events began at 10am with a two-minute siren that brought Israel to a standstill. In the way of Israel’s remembrance days, drivers stood by halted cars along highways and pedestrians came to a standstill, remaining silent and unmoving until the siren’s steady, wailing tone died away.
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A wreath-laying ceremony was then held at Yad Vashem, attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana and Supreme Court President Isaac Amit, among other dignitaries.
Many, including Netanyahu and Amit, then moved to the Knesset for the annual “Every person has a name” event in which lawmakers take turns to read out the names of Holocaust victims.
At the ceremony, Netanyahu spoke about his father-in-law, Shmuel Ben-Artzi, who immigrated to the Land of Israel in 1933, leaving behind his entire family in Poland.
“He used to send part of his salary that he earned in the orchard to his family in Poland,” Netanyahu said. “But when the war broke out, the correspondence ended, and he understood very quickly that something terrible was happening.”
During the Holocaust, “my father-in-law’s entire family from Biłgoraj and Tarnogród in Poland perished,” the prime minister said. Shmuel’s father, mother, his three brothers, younger sister and his twin sister, Yehudit, were all killed.
“Shmuel passed away at the age of 97, but throughout his entire life, even during the last days before he passed away, whenever I mentioned Yehudit’s name he would cry. He always cried,” recounted Netanyahu.
Defence Minster Israel Katz also spoke at the Knesset on Thursday, saying that Hamas “which in its intentions and hatred of Jews… operates exactly like the Nazis in Germany” is part “of the Iranian axis of evil,” which denies the Holocaust and seeks the destruction of Israel.
Katz vowed the government will do everything it can to bring home all the remaining hostages, “and thwart the axis of evil.”
In his first public appearance as the new US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee told attendees at a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony on Thursday that “I come to bring blessing, and stand with you, because you are everything we hope the world will be.”
Speaking at an event organized by the B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem and Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael–Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) honoring Jews who risked their lives to save fellow Jews during the Holocaust, Huckabee said he “believes in the book, and I believe that those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed.”
“I do not understand antisemitism or the hatred that history has inflicted upon the Jewish people,” Huckabee said. “The animosity toward them makes no sense; it is irrational, baseless, and directed at those who have done no wrong.”
The new US envoy added that “the only explanation is that, from the time God chose the Jewish people and this land, they have represented his love for the world and His presence on this planet. Those who hate him naturally direct their hatred toward those who most clearly represent him.”
At 2pm Israel time, 1pm local time, the 37th annual March of the Living event began in Poland, which sees thousands of participants walk alongside Holocaust survivors from the Auschwitz to Birkenau camps to memorialize those lost.
Among those who traveled to participate in the march were Herzog, released hostages, and families of victims of the Hamas attack and those still held captive. It was the second year that victims and families of victims participated in the march.
Shelly Shem Tov, mother of released hostage Omer Shem Tov said that her instinct to come to Auschwitz for March of the Living was correct.
“I was right to come here and hear the stories and see the pictures and the exhibits of mounds of eyeglasses,” Shem Tov said.
Polish President Andrzej Duda (right), President Isaac Herzog (center) and Michal Herzog attend March of the Living at Auschwitz on April 24, 2025. (Chen Schimmel/March of the Living)
Weeping, Shem Tov said her thoughts were also of how the hostages were taken captive, their glasses taken away from them so that they couldn’t see.
“Or a mother who told her child to hide in a closet during the Holocaust just as they did on October 7,” Shem Tov said, recalling harrowing stories of families in communities near the border with Gaza who desperately sought places of refuge as the Hamas-led terrorists prowled from home to home, slaughtering those they found.
“People are crying from the tunnels, ‘Save me, save me.’ Omer came back out, others still calling,” she said of the subterranean passages where many captives are held. “We must bring them home and repair our nation.”
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