Israel commemorates this Monday, May 6 and since this Sunday, Yom HaShoah, and pays tribute to the victims of the Holocaust. Six million Jews were killed during World War II by the Nazis. This year, the horrors of the past resonate with those of October 7. RFI met Yoseph Engel. This son of a deportee is deeply marked by the Hamas attack, during which one of his grandchildren was kidnapped and held hostage in Gaza.
2 mins
With our correspondent in Jerusalem, Sami Boukhelifa
“ In my opinion, October 7it is also the Shoah. » Yoseph Engel is Israeli, he has Dutch and Slovak roots. “ The Nazis arrested my father on February 11, 1943. They sent him to Auschwitz Birkenau. They tattooed the number 1-0-1-0-5-7 on his arm. It was his new identity », he testifies.
A tragic family story. That of millions of Jews exterminated during the Second World War. Yoseph Engel’s father survived and settled in Palestine at the end of the war in 1945 », says the old man. A few years later, it is birth of the Hebrew state« home of the Jewish people », guarantor of his safety.
“ We can’t understand »
“ At the time, we said: never again. And we have always repeated it, does he support. So, we cannot understand and explain what happened. What Hamas did on October 7 was no small thing. 1 200 Israelis were killed in 8 hours. 1 200 people killed in 8 hours is on average more deaths per hour than during the Holocaust. »
Nearly 250 people were also kidnapped that day. Among the hostages, Ofir Engel, 17, Yoseph’s grandson. After 54 days of captivity, the young man was released late last November during the truce agreement concluded between Israel and Hamas.
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