Look at the photo of Shiri Bibas and her children before Hamas murdered them and desecrated their bodies. Look simultaneously at the famous photo of the Jewish boy from the Warsaw Ghetto. While the comparison between the Holocaust and the Oct.7 massacre disturbs many and has already sparked protest, it remains a necessary one – with one crucial difference (among several): The German Nazis succeeded in carrying out their "Final Solution" and destroying most of the Jewish people. The new Nazis tried and failed, and will not succeed in doing this to the State of Israel.
Look again at these two photographs, because sometimes one picture – and in this case two – is worth a thousand words. Look again at these two images of Jewish fate. So distant, yet so close. Two documentations, one in color and one in black and white, divided by 80 years yet united in their testimony. Two photos so similar, yet so different. In both, Jewish mothers and children walk to their deaths without knowing it. In both, the eyes speak in silence, in pleading, in terror and helplessness. Both touched many people who had never personally known their subjects.
The first was taken in moments when it seemed there would be no more hope or revival, that the end had come for the Jewish people when we were scattered and divided among nations, without defensive force, land, or sovereignty. The second was taken in a time of great failure, internal strife, and divine concealment after we had already written chapters of heroism, independence, and sovereignty and proved that "Our hope is not yet lost, The hope that is two-thousand years old," as the Israeli anthem Hatikva goes.
The first, earlier image is from the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto (spring 1943), showing a Jewish boy wearing a cap raising his hands in surrender as Nazi guards watch him. The photo was taken by SS officer Franz Conrad as part of the Stroop Report, moments before all the Jews in the photo were deported to the Majdanek and Treblinka death camps. The report authors wrote on the back of the photo: "Forcibly pulled from the bunkers."
The second photo was taken eight decades later, showing Shiri Bibas embracing her two children, Ariel and Kfir, in a blanket, capturing a moment of terror before they were taken into the unknown – where they were brutally murdered.
Iconic pictures
The Bibas family was photographed after a massacre with Nazi characteristics in Kibbutz Nir Oz, which included burning homes with their inhabitants by exploding gas balloons, similar to the burning of Jews by Nazis in the Jedwabne barn, the Great Synagogue of Bialystok and many other places. In the Gaza border communities, like in the Warsaw Ghetto, the murderers tried to convince residents to open their doors using threatened hostages (and these are not the only points of similarity – there are more).
The photo of the Warsaw Ghetto boy has accompanied us for several generations. It became iconic in Jewish fate. Many Jewish leaders and organizations have hung it in their offices to never forget and never forgive, and to swear "never again."
It is highly likely that the Bibas photo, which has also become a symbol, will achieve a similar iconic status. It symbolizes the breaking of the Jewish oath of "never again," but also the oath to renew it. It symbolizes the horror and the failure, but also the oath that "but we are risen, and stand upright" (Psalm 20:8).
The ghetto boy, despite many studies into his identity, remains anonymous to this day, and it is doubtful if he was brought to a Jewish grave. The Bibas children and their mother are expected to be brought to eternal rest in a Jewish grave the day after tomorrow, and will never be anonymous. An entire nation, which so hoped for a different ending, will accompany them with a renewed oath that nevertheless and despite everything – we will continue to repair and create and build and plant, and write here more and more continuing chapters in our Jewish story of sovereignty.
Look again at these two photos of Jewish fate. So distant, yet so close. Two documentations, one in color and one in black and white, divided by 80 years yet united in their testimony.
