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Doing exactly what they themselves went through at the hands of Hitler
Have some mercy
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/may-the-eyes-of-starving-children-haunt-us-all/
A child lies malnourished and unable to absorb food in a hospital in Khan Yunis, Gaza, April 26, 2025. (Photo, Yomiuri Shimbun via AP Images, Alamy )
JVL Introduction
On VE Day, Haim Bresheeth-Žabner was compelled to write about the starvation in Gaza after more than nine weeks of total blockade. The images were so reminiscent of those of his own father as the immediate ordeal of Auschwitz, a (near) death march and finally liberation in Mauthausen, near Ebensee. Mark Etkind, also the son of a Holocaust survivor, wrote the following introduction. Haim’s piece follows with a picture of his own father just after liberation. He says: “That Jews in Israel, many who are sons and grandsons of people like Arie Zabner, see fit to genocide the population of Gaza, after having bombed them numerous times, killing many thousands, and oppressed them for almost eight decades, is a mark of shame for all humanity.”
LL
Eighty years ago, on 8 May 1945, the Second World War ended in Europe. Professor Haim Bresheeth’s moving account of how he felt on the 80<span>th</span> anniversary is published below – along with photographs of his father, an inmate of Mauthausen.
My own father, Michael Etkind, had intense memories of those days in May 1945 – but no photographs. He did, however, write an account of how the ‘death march’ he was on ended. Here are some extracts from this account starting with when he and his fellow prisoners heard the news of Hitler’s suicide on 30 April:
Mark Etkind (son of a survivor of the Lodz Ghetto and various concentration camps including Buchenwald – and co-organiser of Holocaust survivors and descendants against the Gaza genocide).
Have some mercy
May the eyes of starving children haunt us all
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/may-the-eyes-of-starving-children-haunt-us-all/
A child lies malnourished and unable to absorb food in a hospital in Khan Yunis, Gaza, April 26, 2025. (Photo, Yomiuri Shimbun via AP Images, Alamy )
JVL Introduction
On VE Day, Haim Bresheeth-Žabner was compelled to write about the starvation in Gaza after more than nine weeks of total blockade. The images were so reminiscent of those of his own father as the immediate ordeal of Auschwitz, a (near) death march and finally liberation in Mauthausen, near Ebensee. Mark Etkind, also the son of a Holocaust survivor, wrote the following introduction. Haim’s piece follows with a picture of his own father just after liberation. He says: “That Jews in Israel, many who are sons and grandsons of people like Arie Zabner, see fit to genocide the population of Gaza, after having bombed them numerous times, killing many thousands, and oppressed them for almost eight decades, is a mark of shame for all humanity.”
LL
Eighty years ago, on 8 May 1945, the Second World War ended in Europe. Professor Haim Bresheeth’s moving account of how he felt on the 80<span>th</span> anniversary is published below – along with photographs of his father, an inmate of Mauthausen.
My own father, Michael Etkind, had intense memories of those days in May 1945 – but no photographs. He did, however, write an account of how the ‘death march’ he was on ended. Here are some extracts from this account starting with when he and his fellow prisoners heard the news of Hitler’s suicide on 30 April:
Although the US and its Allies fought the war to defend their empires, not to defend Jews, it is striking that in May 1945 the US and its allies eventually stopped a genocide – while, in May 2025, these same powers can only enable a genocide. This seems to be a sign, as Haim says, of the West’s ‘deep moral, ethical and political decline’.
Mark Etkind (son of a survivor of the Lodz Ghetto and various concentration camps including Buchenwald – and co-organiser of Holocaust survivors and descendants against the Gaza genocide).
Please observe the image above of a Palestinian child from Gaza, which I have seen today, May 8, just exactly 80 years after the Liberation of Europe, and in the picture below, my father, Arie Žabner; he was liberated by the US army in Gusen II, Mauthausen, near Ebensee on May 8, 1945, and the pictures were taken by the US Signal Corps photographer. My father weighed 32 kg on that day, 1kg for each of his years. He arrived in Gusen II (which the SS called Hell of Hells) in late January 1945, on the death march from Auschwitz, where he and my mother Machla Zilberberg were slave workers since mid 1944; she was death-marched to Bergen Belsen, and liberated by the British Army in April 1945. The image shows Arie and his [in]mates cooking food they received from the US forces. Some of them would die later that day from the sudden ingestion of canned meat. Today, this image welcomes visitors to the Mauthausen Museum.
Concentration camp near Ebensee liberated (1945) Haim’s father is 2nd from the left in the group crouching by the fire. (Photo Alamy Stock)
That Jews in Israel, many who are sons and grandsons of people like Arie Zabner, see fit to genocide the population of Gaza, after having bombed them numerous times, killing many thousands, and oppressed them for almost eight decades, is a mark of shame for all humanity. That Israel has chosen to destroy all housing, hospitals, clinics, mosques, schools, Bakeries and all types of urban infrastructure such as water purification, water and electricity supplies and every other life-supporting amenity, seems to be an unwelcome improvement on Nazi tactics during the Holocaust. This barbaric and repulsive crime has now culminated in a starvation campaign against all in Gaza, of 70 days and counting, creating images like the one you see above, and a million children who are totally traumatised on every register of their existence, while they still live. That the West is the power that sanctions, finances and arms this Israeli terrifying atrocity is a sign of its deep moral, ethical and political decline, seemingly irreversible.
But this is not just a mark of shame on humanity, it is a Mark of Cain against Judaism itself; Most Israeli Jews, polls have proven, support the Gaza genocide, even while denying its nature. The majority of Jews in Western diasporas, through their Zionist organisations, have continued their shameful, inhuman support of the Zionist enterprise of clearing Palestine of its people, while grabbing their land. This inability to stand up and be counted, to oppose Genocide even, and especially when it is committed by Jews is unforgivable and unforgettable. That many Jews ave arisen against the genocide proves the anti-Jewish nature of this genocide, and power of human solidarity. History will judge those who ordered and committed this crime – a crime we thought is well behind us. May we be fortunate enough to observe the perpetrators also held to account in the highest courts of the earth, ICC, ICJ and the UN, as befits their horrific crimes. May the eyes of this child haunt them to their death, like they haunt me.
Never Again, for anyone, anywhere!
Haim Bresheeth-Žabner
holocaust survivors against genocide at protest for Gaza London 2024 (Haim can be seen holding the banner and Mark is next to him n the right)
