Holocaust survivor says reliving nightmare with grandson's Gaza captivity

HOLON: For Holocaust survivor Michael Kuperstein, the harrowing wait for news of his grandson -- held hostage by Hamas in Gaza -- feels like he is reliving a nightmare.

"It's a second Holocaust," said the 84-year-old, describing an anguish that has reopened old wounds he thought had long since healed.

Despite his frail health, the octogenarian is determined to take part on Thursday in the annual March of the Living at the site of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in southern Poland.

In his heart, he holds tightly to the hope of one day seeing his grandson, Bar Kuperstein, alive again.

"The government says the war must go on, that we have no choice -- but that's not true," said Kuperstein, his anger clearly visible as talks for the release of hostages remain deadlocked.

During their attack on Israel, Hamas militants abducted 251 people and took them back to Gaza. Of those, 58 are still being held there, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Kuperstein himself narrowly escaped death in 1941, when his mother fled the Nazi advance in the Soviet Union and hid him in Tashkent -- then part of the USSR, now Uzbekistan, just months after his birth.

In 1972, he immigrated to Israel with his wife Faina and their two children.

But tragedy has continued to shadow the family.

Their son, Tal Kuperstein, a volunteer paramedic, suffered severe injuries in an accident years ago while rushing to save a four-year-old girl.

The incident left him disabled, unable to speak or move.

At 17, Tal's eldest son, Bar, moved in with his grandparents to make space at home for Tal's live-in caregiver.

Following in his father's footsteps, Bar also became a paramedic and once even saved his grandfather's life after a heart attack, performing emergency aid and swiftly calling an ambulance.

Just two months later, at the age of 21, he was abducted from the Nova music festival near the Gaza border during the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.

The massacre at the festival left more than 370 people dead.

Bar was seen in a video taken shortly after his abduction, bound hand and foot, with a rope around his neck.

Since then the family received no updates until February, when freed hostages who had been held with Bar in Gaza tunnels confirmed he was still alive.

Witnesses at the festival told AFP that Bar had been treating the wounded when he was seized by militants.

Then on April 5, Hamas's armed wing released a video showing Bar alongside another hostage, the first images of him alive.

"Bar looks extremely thin. He has his grandfather's eyes. He's the only one who inherited them," said Faina Kuperstein, his grandmother.

"He looked so much like him when he was younger. But now, his eyes have lost their light. He looks terribly pale.

"I barely recognise his face anymore," she said, choking back tears.

"He never left the house without kissing me goodbye. I miss him so much."

All the hostages should have been released by now, said Michael Kuperstein.

"But we're still waiting. Nothing changes except for more fallen soldiers. Why?" he added.

Bar turned 23 at the start of April.

Despite his speech disability, his father, Tal, longs to talk to him.

With immense effort, Tal recently managed to say a few words, a moment of pride that fills the family with hope he'll one day be able to speak to his son again.

Faina visits Bar's room every day. It remains neat and tidy.

At each meal, the family keeps a chair empty for him, with his photo placed on the table.

She yearns to tell him, "Your father is speaking now."

"He'll soon walk again. You dreamed of this moment -- and look, it's happening. You must stay strong so that you can return to us."