Talmoud said Monday she looked forward to meeting with fellow survivors from global antisemitic attacks, \u201cbecause they will understand me in the way that the average Joe does not.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, that meetup between survivors of antisemitic attacks from three continents took place during a moving event ahead of the march.<\/p>\n
\t Hanna Abesidon was at Sydney\u2019s Bondi Beach when gunmen attacked a Hanukkah celebration on December 14, killing 15 people, including her father, Tibor Weitzen<\/a>. On Tuesday, exactly four months later \u2014 and one day before the 81st anniversary of her grandmother\u2019s liberation from Bergen Belsen \u2014 Abesidon described the ordeal to the audience of gathered journalists and dignitaries.<\/p>\n She described attending the event with her parents, nine-month pregnant daughter, and 3-year-old grandchild. It was only when she managed to get her grandchild to safety that Abesidon returned to check on her parents.<\/p>\n \u201cI came closer to the area where Mom and Dad were sitting, and I recognized Dad\u2019s shoes and pants, but he was covered already, so I knew that he was gone,\u201d she said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t make it because he was a Jew, nothing else.\u201d<\/p>\n Abesidon\u2019s mother, Eva, survived, although her best friend was also murdered at the scene.<\/p>\n \n\t \u201cThere were about seven or eight people holding the [synagogue] doors closed while a very large, very, very angry person was doing his level best to get in, and he had a knife,\u201d Finlay said. \u201cHe was using the knife to try and break through. He was picking up things from the grounds of the shul, trying to break in, and he had what looked like a bomb around his waist.\u201d<\/p>\n When police arrived at the scene, they shot and killed the attacker, but a stray bullet hit Finlay in the chest. Someone at the scene found Finlay\u2019s father and brought him to his side.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember his face \u2014 no child should ever see their parent like that,\u201d said Finlay. \u201cHe said afterwards that he\u2019s a doctor, but he\u2019s not trained for that.\u201d<\/p>\n \t Talmoud also recounted the horrors of the day that her colleagues from the Israeli Embassy were murdered at an event outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, last May.<\/p>\n Talmoud and Szkop had carpooled to an event at the Capital Jewish Museum together with Milgrim and Lischinsky on May 21, 2025. When they left at around 9 p.m. to return to Talmoud\u2019s car, a gunman opened fire, killing their colleagues. Both Talmoud, 25, and Szkop, 29, cowered on the ground just feet from where their colleagues were murdered in cold blood.<\/p>\n \u201cI still am looking over my shoulder to see if someone is going to shoot me again,\u201d said Talmoud. \u201cOn the other hand, I still wear my Star of David, and I\u2019m decked out in it, because just because you tried to kill me doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m not going to be more Jewish. In fact, try again.\u201d<\/p>\n \t Abesidon admitted she does feel unsafe, but does not make it obvious.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to show that I\u2019m scared, because these people, they thrive on us being scared,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are here to stay. We\u2019re not going anywhere. All the ones that try to persecute us, they\u2019re not here anymore. We are here.\u201d<\/p>\n All three of the terror survivors said that they no longer felt safe in their home countries of Australia, the UK and the US, respectively. Their feelings are born out in a recent Tel Aviv University report<\/a> saying that 2025 was the deadliest year on record for Diaspora Jews in three decades.<\/p>\n Another tough year<\/p>\n Auschwitz survivor Nate Leipciger was returning to the March of the Living for the 22nd time from his home in Toronto.<\/p>\n Speaking to the press on Tuesday and addressing the terror survivors and delegation of international police leaders, 98-year-old Leipciger said that he \u201cgrew up in a world of antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n \t \u201cAntisemitism, as you know, has existed for centuries,\u201d he said. \u201cIts form may change, its language may evolve, but its consequences are always the same: tragic. For many decades following the Holocaust, it became less visible, less acceptable, less fashionable, but it never disappeared. It went into hiding.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNow it has emerged with alarming force, fueled by extremist ideologies and terrorist organizations,\u201d Leipciger said.<\/p>\n Leipciger said that when mezuzahs were torn from houses in the condo block where he lives, he felt like his \u201cskin was invaded by a virus.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was afraid who may be standing on the other side of my door, somebody who again wishes to harm me,\u201d he said. \u201cThese events bring back feelings that we hoped would never again have to be experienced. It brings fear, vulnerability and uncertainty.\u201d<\/p>\n The survivors on this year\u2019s march include 11 people from Israel who were only able to join at the last minute, when a ceasefire was declared in the conflict with Iran, which has severely disrupted air travel to and from the Jewish state.<\/p>\n Revital Yakin Krakovsky, deputy CEO of International March of the Living and CEO of March of the Living Israel, said this year\u2019s march has been the most challenging one yet to stage.<\/p>\n She said that in the years before the coronavirus pandemic, between 10,000 and 12,000 people would regularly attend the annual event, which draws large numbers of students from around the world. When the march resumed after the COVID hiatus, it first garnered 3,000 attendees, and then 5,000 the following year. This year\u2019s program is welcoming 7,000.<\/p>\n \u201cWe hope that next year there will be no challenge, no war, no epidemic, and over 10,000 marchers will pass through the gate,\u201d Yakin Krakovsky said.<\/p>\n \t Sylvan Adams, president of the World Jewish Congress Israel, led this year\u2019s march alongside Talmoud, Szkop and the other terror survivors. Together, they lit the first torch dedicated to combating antisemitism, along with US special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had a post-Holocaust slogan of \u2018Never Again,\u2019\u201d Adams said on Monday. \u201cI am the son of Holocaust survivors. In my life, I would never have believed what we have seen since October 7. We are under attack.\u201d<\/p>\n Calling on Western nations to \u201cwake up,\u201d Adams said that \u201cit starts with the Jews, but it never ends with the Jews. We are fighting the fight of all decent people and of our Western way of life.\u201d<\/p>\n Also on the Israeli delegation was 93-year-old Naftali Furst, who survived Nazi death marches and now lives in Haifa. On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, he returned to the site of the former Auschwitz subcamp of Budy, where he was once housed.<\/p>\n \t There was virtually nothing to differentiate the little-known site, about seven kilometers (4.3 miles) away from the main camp.<\/p>\n \u201cThis morning, for the first time in 80 years, thanks to the March of the Living, we discovered this place,\u201d he said, adding that there is nothing there to commemorate its dark history.<\/p>\n Furst and his family were in the Sered concentration camp in Slovakia in 1942. They managed to escape two years later but were recaptured, and on November 3, 1944, arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau, where Furst and his older brother were separated from their parents.<\/p>\n The boys were sent to Budy before going on to Buchenwald, from where they were liberated. They were reunited with their parents after the war, and the family eventually moved to Israel.<\/p>\n Furst said coming to Auschwitz obviously brings up \u201cmixed feelings,\u201d but that he was feeling positive about joining other survivors and \u201ccarrying thousands of people who were burned and killed here on me.\u201d<\/p>\n He said he felt \u201cproud\u201d to represent those who \u201cdon\u2019t have a voice anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n \t Yakin Krakovsky echoed the need to listen to those who are still able to speak up and share their survival stories.<\/p>\n \u201cTime is of the essence. We have a decade to march with the survivors who still remember what happened to them,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are hugely privileged to still hear these stories from them, and we don\u2019t have many more years to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018It\u2019s a more jarring experience because it happened to me\u2019<\/p>\n After surviving the murderous antisemitic attack in DC, Talmoud said Monday that this visit to Auschwitz \u2014 her second since 2022 \u2014 feels different.<\/p>\n \u201cThis time it\u2019s a more jarring experience because it happened to me,\u201d she said. \u201cObviously, not in this capacity, but they still came to try and kill me, the Jew. It doubled down for me that no one really learned from the history that we are supposed to be learning from, that we keep saying never again, yet clearly that it happened.\u201d<\/p>\n Szkop was raised Catholic in a Polish family in Michigan, but has Jewish roots on her father\u2019s side. This is her second time at Auschwitz since the DC attack, having joined a Polish delegation just four weeks afterward.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-04-14-at-12.17.05-640x400.jpeg\")
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\n\t\tRevital Yakin Krakovsky, deputy CEO of International March of the Living and CEO of March of the Living Israel (far left), interviewed survivors of three antisemitic terrorist attacks in 2025. Next to her is Abbie Talmoud, who survived the Jewish museum attack in Washington. Center, right: Yoni Finlay who was injured in the Yom Kippur attack on a synagogue in Manchester and (far right) Hanna Abesidon, who survived the shooting at Bondi Beach in which her father was murdered. (courtesy)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/bondi15combo-640x400.jpeg\")
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\n\t\tThe victims of the December 14, 2025, Sydney Hanukkah terror shooting: top row (left to right) \u2013 Reuven Morrison, Rabbi Yaakov Levitan, Dan Elkayam, Alex Kleytman, Rabbi Eli Schlanger; middle row (left to right) \u2013 Edith Brutman, Peter Meagher, Tibor Weitzen, Marika Pogany, Matilda [last name withheld]; bottom row (left to right) \u2013 Tania Tretiak, Boris Tetleroyd, Adam Smyth, Sofia and Boris Gurman. (Composite: Times of Israel; Images: Courtesy\/social media, used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)
\n\tHeaton Park survivor Yoni Finlay described arriving at his Manchester synagogue early on Yom Kippur, which this year fell out on October 2, as he was due to lead the morning service. Finlay recalled saying hello to the guard and to other congregants, two of whom died in the terror attack that morning, when a British citizen born in Syria rammed his car into pedestrians outside the synagogue and then went on a stabbing rampage.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AFP__20251002__77GF8GD__v1__HighRes__BritainCrimeReligionPolice-1-e1759404814671-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tArmed police officers talk with members of the community near Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue in Crumpsall, north Manchester, on October 2, 2025 (Paul Currie \/ AFP)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Abbie-Talmoud--640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tAbbie Talmoud, a survivor of the terror attack at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, stands at the gate to Auschwitz on April 13, 2026. (Yossi Zeliger)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-04-14-at-13.50.25-300x480.jpeg\")
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\n\t\tL-R: Ninety-eight-year-old Auschwitz survivor Nate Leipciger, Imam Mohammad Tawhidi from UAE and Canada and Leipciger\u2019s son-in-law Cary Green at the March of the Living in Poland, April 14, 2026. (courtesy)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/AP26104435368448-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tPeople take part in the annual \u2018March of the Living\u2019 to commemorate the Holocaust, a yearly Holocaust remembrance march between the former death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau, in Oswiecim, Poland, April 14, 2026. (AP Photo\/Beata Zawrzel)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Natali-Furst-returned-to-Auschwitz-where-he-arrived-with-his-family-in-1944-1-640x400.jpeg\")
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\n\t\tHolocaust survivor Naftali Furst returns to Auschwitz, where he arrived with his family in 1944, on April 13, 2026. (Yossi Zeliger)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/AP26104448777256-1-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tPeople take part in the annual \u2018March of the Living\u2019 to commemorate the Holocaust, a yearly Holocaust remembrance march between the former death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau, in Oswiecim, Poland, April 14, 2026. (AP Photo\/Beata Zawrzel)<\/p>\n
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