Haim Etgar's Tearful Revelation: 'Almost My Entire Family Was Murdered'

On the occasion of Holocaust Remembrance Day, host Haim Etgar shared his deeply sorrowful family story with his followers on social media. 'Almost my entire family was murdered in the Holocaust,' he recounted. 'Among the victims was my uncle, Stefan, my father's twin brother, who was just a baby when sent to the death camp.

He was murdered when he was less than a year old.

Families of Holocaust survivors have few pictures of those who were murdered. Most were lost, destroyed. Thus, any documentation that surfaces is priceless. Not long ago, a distant relative sent me a picture of Adela, my grandmother Lily’s younger sister. Adela was slaughtered in the Holocaust. This picture left me stunned. It was the first time I realized how beautiful she was and how much she resembled my grandmother.

An Ukrainian guard murdered her in the Warsaw Ghetto. He entered the family apartment and shot her. Just like that. Only because she was Jewish did he think it was permissible and necessary to kill her. She was nineteen when she died.

'Both Then and Now, This Evil Is Coated with Absurd Arguments'

How does his family’s story relate to our days? He writes: 'For months, this thought has been echoing in my mind: Yes, today we have a strong state and independence, yet how similar the events that my grandma and her family went through are to what happened to us on October 7th. Back then, in the Holocaust, just like seven months ago, families, children, women, and men were horribly abused and murdered, just because of their Jewishness.'

'Both then and now, this evil is coated with absurd arguments dispassionately spread by our adversaries: national, racial, modern explanations, but the coarse seams beneath these claims conceal the same old antisemitism. In Europe of the last century, young and old shouted with hateful throats that Jews must be dealt with. To eliminate what they called the parasites.

Today, they are shouting in universities: "From the river to the sea," and again want to eliminate us. A different era, the same goal. In camps or by RPG. The main thing is that we cease. But like then, even now, despite the hatred, the wickedness, and the ignorance, we will survive and triumph. We can be severely hurt and made to bleed, but we cannot be broken. In their memory," he concludes.