PM Netanyahu at the 'Unto Every Person There is a Name' Ceremony: "The magnitude of the killing in the Holocaust is unbelievable. It amounts to 5,000 October 7's."
Israel - Prime Minister's Office
Events and Speeches
The 37th Government
06.05.2024
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today, opened Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day with the Wreath Laying Ceremony at Yad Vashem. He then lit a memorial candle upon entering the Knesset, where he participated in the "Unto Every Person There is a Name". He read the names of the members of his father-in-law's family, the late Shmuel Ben Artzi, all of whom perished in the Holocaust.
Prime Minister Netanyahu's remarks at the "Unto Every Person There is a Name" ceremony:
"Yesterday evening, at the memorial ceremony at Yad Vashem, I said that the intention of those who murdered, raped and beheaded, and kidnapped our loved ones who are still there, and whom we are determined to rescue, is the same intention of the Nazi thugs who murdered one-third of our people. The difference is, that we now have heroic soldiers, hundreds of whom fell in boundless heroism, while others have been wounded.
We embrace them, the families of the fallen and of the hostages, and take them into our hearts. But this was not a Holocaust because we have this defensive force. The difference truly is that in the Holocaust we did not have this. The magnitude of the killing in the Holocaust is unbelievable. It amounts to 5,000 October 7's.
To every person there is a name, and many have relatives who are still here. One of them was my father-in-law, the late Shmuel Ben-Artzi, the father of my wife Sara, who was sent as a youth in the 1930's, by the Novardok Yeshiva to open a branch in Bnei Brak. He made aliyah and worked as a pioneer in the orchards. He was a poet and an author who won the Ka-Tzenik Prize for Holocaust Literature. He was an outstanding educator who raised generations of students. He was a Tanakh researcher and participated in David Ben-Gurion's first Tanakh circle. If I am not mistaken, he was perhaps the only one, or one of very few, who received citations from both the Etzel and the Haganah. When he made aliyah, his father was strongly opposed, and followed him from his town of Bilgoraj to the railway station in Warsaw. He begged, brought him a plate of cookies that he loved, and tried to persuade him not to make aliyah. Shmuel was insistent. He kept in contact with his family and would send them part of his wages from the orchards.
A little while after the outbreak of the war, the connection was cut, Shmuel, with his sharp senses, understood, when it was still not yet clear. With his poetic soul, he wrote the following poem:
'Dream.
Last night I was in the village of my birth,
In the landscape that is dear to my heart in its radiance,
In the well of my childhood a reflection still shimmers.
My father's house still stands.
The chestnut trees are already stained red.
This is the nature of Poland's autumn.
My brother and I still lumber, as before,
On the path to our sukkah, we carry branches to cover it.
The wind chases a cloud through the sky.
Tonight the rain won't dare to come.
We will arrive home in a moment.
We will decorate the sukkah by hand as dictated in law.
We approached the house - Gentiles in our midst!
I searched for a sukkah of peace in vain.
My brother left me his burden - and is no more!
All alone there I cried until the dream ended.'
I would like to read the names of my father-in-law's family, the late Shmuel Ben-Artzi from Bilgoraj in Poland, which was entirely lost in the Holocaust:
My wife's grandfather Moshe Haan, and his wife Itta Haan. My father-in-law's twin sister Yehudit Haan, 24 years old. Until his last day, and I think on his last day, at 97, Shmuel would cry whenever he mentioned her. The brothers: Meir Dov Haan, 18 years old; Shimon Tzvi Haan, 16; Aryeh Leib Haan, 13; and his youngest sister Pesla, aged 10.
Family members from Bilgioraj: His uncle Abraham Tauber, his wife, daughter and son. His aunt Rachel Tauber and her three sons, Abraham, Jacob and Shlomo, their wives and all of their children. His aunt Hinde and her husband Yehezkel. Aunt Hendel, her husband and children. Aunt Paula and her two daughters.
Family members from Tarnogrod: My wife's great-grandfather - Ze'ev Wolf Haan. My father-in-law Shmuel's aunt, Ma'tel Koenigstein (the daughter of Ze'ev Wolf Haan), her son Hillel and her eldest daughter. The uncle - Mendel Haan, his wife and their two children.
May their memories be blessed. May G-d avenge them and all of our six million brothers and sisters."
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