There’s life after this: Holocaust survivors reassure Oct. 7 survivors

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TEL AVIV, Israel — Steps from Frishman Beach in Tel Aviv’s tony Central District, a group of about 40 foreign diplomats, journalists, and others recently gathered in a private apartment to hear from 91-year-old Holocaust survivor Dr. Arnold Clevs.

Hosted by Eylon Levy, who became famous as an Israeli government spokesman in the days following October 7, the group was part of Zikaron BaSalon, an initiative that connects Holocaust survivors with community members in the intimate spaces of people’s private living rooms.

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“Why did I survive? I question that myself,” Cleve told the Zikaron BaSalon audience. “I was in second grade before the war and out of 30 classmates, only two of us survived. Why am I so special? I don’t know the answer. I believe in God and I’m still here. To all survivors, I say, be happy.”

His message has special resonance this year. On Monday, millions of Jews worldwide will light memorial candles to commemorate Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, and nowhere will it be more raw than in Israel, where citizens are still grieving everything they lost on October 7 — from family members and friends, to homes and communities, to their very security and sense of normalcy.

Zikaron BaSalon’s global director, Sharon Buenos, says Holocaust survivors are playing an especially critical role this year in helping a shattered nation to heal, by imparting messages of hope and resilience to survivors of the October 7 massacre.

Approximately 149,000 Holocaust survivors live in Israel, many of whom were children or babies born during the war. Hours after Hamas breached Israel’s southern border on Black Saturday, Zikaron BaSalon expanded its activities to offer them immediate support.

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“When the war broke out, we realized that we were not dealing with the typical scenarios that the country is used to — this was something different,” Buenos reflects. “The first group that needed our attention were the survivors, whom we knew would not only be fearful, but likely also reliving their childhood traumas. I spoke to a 93-year-old survivor who said, ‘Get me a uniform and a weapon and I’m going in.’ But for the most part, Holocaust survivors were really, really traumatized like the rest of us by what they were seeing.”

One day, I had everything, and suddenly everything disappeared. You understand, right?

Zikaron BaSalon — the name means Remembrance in the Living Room — established an emergency call centre to offer them emotional support and assist them with food, shelter, medication and transportation to medical appointments. The apartment windows of one survivor living in Ashkelon had been shattered by a Hamas missile that had struck a neighbour’s home. Although the Ashkelon municipality had replaced them, the survivor’s apartment had also suffered a leak, which Zikaron BaSalon paid to have repaired.

“While we were busy responding to survivors’ immediate needs, we began hearing concerns that no one will want to hear the stories of Holocaust survivors from 80 years ago, since we have new survivors from October 7,” says Buenos. “We saw social media posts questioning the necessity of continuing Jewish communities’ annual trips to Poland to bear witness to the sites of the mass atrocities committed there — suggesting they should be cancelled.”

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“For a few days after October 7, we wondered what Yom HaShoah would look like moving forward. We realized that the survivors are not only sharing their histories with us — they’re also teaching us the most important lessons of resilience and of hope, and that we will prevail.”

Zikaron BaSalon began connecting Holocaust survivors with survivors of the Nova music festival and children from regions attacked on October 7. In January, the organization set up a living room at the Dan Acadia Herzliya Hotel for child evacuees of Kibbutz Mefalsim, a community on the Gaza border that suffered tremendous casualties. The children, who are currently living at the hotel indefinitely with their families, met with Holocaust survivor Hannah Gofrit, who suffered at the hands of the Nazis from ages four to 10.

“We lost many of our friends,” a young girl confided in Gofrit. “I hid in my mother’s closet (when the terrorists came).”

“I also sat in a closet for two years,” replied the octogenarian. “One day, I had everything, and suddenly everything disappeared. You understand, right? Suddenly your home is gone.”

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“That’s what happened to us,” said a boy.

“That’s why I came to speak to you,” said Gofrit. “To tell you that you have a future. That there is life after this.”

At another Zikaron BaSalon event, the parents of an Israeli hostage asked Bergen-Belsen survivor Rena Quint how their son could possibly emerge from the ordeal and continue to lead a normal life following the horrors he is experiencing in captivity. Quint replied that he will be loved, embraced and supported by everyone around him, and will laugh again and return to life — just as she had.

“These Holocaust survivors have endured the absolute worst of humanity, yet they have rebuilt their lives, created families, communities and businesses, and contributed to the establishment of the State of Israel,” says Buenos.

“We just celebrated Passover where we recounted the story of our ancestors’ salvation from slavery in Egypt and their subsequent prosperity. If this gives us hope, surely our Holocaust survivors give us the most hope.”

Clevs, who resides in Jerusalem, was eight years old when his parents and six-year-old sister were forcibly relocated to their town’s ghetto, where they remained for two years.

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“We had a live-in housekeeper, a young Lithuanian lady who literally grew up with us,” Clevs shared. “She came in one day with a Lithuanian collaborator who looked around our home and pointed at what he wanted. She found a suitcase and loaded everything up. Before they walked away, my mother asked, ‘Could you bring us some bread?’ We never saw her again. It was a terrible betrayal to me as a child. I thought of her as a sister. We always spoke Yiddish together.”

He spent the following two years in 11 different slave labour and concentration camps. In Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dr. Clevs survived a selection with the infamous Dr. Mengele.

“I realized it was a selection to kill us,” he said. “I used to put sand in my shoes to make myself a little bit taller. Mengele came to me and asked, ‘How old are you?’ I said, ‘I’m 14’. He said, ‘You’re a liar,’ and took his gloves and hit me over the face. He told me to drop my pants and my shirt and told me to turn around. He then asked, ‘How come you’re so dark?’ I said, ‘I only have one shirt. When it’s a hot day the sun is out. I want to preserve that shirt, so I remove it and this is how I got a suntan.’ I don’t know if he liked my suntan, or if he liked my answer. I have no idea. He just passed me by and took the guy next to me to be killed.”

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Shortly after liberation, Clevs reunited with his mother and sister who had also survived. He lived for a time in Italy, then moved to Evanston, Ill., a Chicago suburb, where he raised a family with his wife, and practised dentistry. In 2020, he moved to Israel, and today is the proud grandfather of four grandchildren.

A fellow survivor who was with Clevs in Auschwitz-Birkenau as a 16 year-old now lives in Sderot, in southern Israel — ground zero for Hamas’s ongoing missile attacks. He is now 97, and the community named a neighbourhood in his honour.

“I asked him, I said, ‘You live in a town where missiles are always coming in. How do you do it?’ He said, ‘It’s a hell of a lot better than Birkenau.’

Buenos believes that October 7 was horrific, but it was not a second Holocaust.

“Our survivors,” she says, “are living proof that even after suffering tremendous loss and trauma, one can go on to lead a meaningful, full and happy life.”

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