About 15 years ago, an Israeli university student in her early 20s was walking home from a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony she attended at her mother’s insistence.

“When I was growing up I tried to run away from anything connected to the Holocaust, ” recalled Adi Altschuler. “But as we walked along Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, hearing televisions blaring a EuroLeague basketball game that young people were watching, two thoughts hit me at once: Soon there would be no survivors left to tell their stories — and there had to be a better way to spend the evening.”

Altschuler began inviting friends and neighbors to her family’s home to hear Holocaust survivors speak. The gatherings evolved into a volunteer-based organization she founded, Zikaron BaSalon, which enables small groups to meet with individual survivors and discuss how the lessons of the Holocaust resonate today.

Speaking at a seminar for volunteer leaders in Jerusalem earlier this year, Alstschuler noted that the number of gatherings has expanded dramatically, with more than 2 million people participating in 66 countries during the past year.

“But with the number of survivors dwindling, we need to find ways to pass on the testimonies of the survivors and keep the tradition of the salon discussions alive,” Altschuler said.

However, since the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023, discussions about the Holocaust have frequently intertwined with memories of that day and its aftermath.

Shir Segal, the daughter of Aviva and Keith Segal, two former Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 and later released, spoke about lessons hostage families have drawn from Holocaust survivors. One of the most important insights, she said, was the crucial role that telling their stories plays in their rehabilitation.

“Until those who returned from Gaza tell the full story of what happened, recovery from the war will not be possible,” Segal said. Her mother, she noted, wrote a book, “The Main Thing is To Wake Up to a New Morning, about her captivity. It hit shelves on April 8 in Hebrew.

Shai Levi, who leads the Zikaron BaSalon volunteers in Germany, described inviting survivors of Gaza border kibbutzim attacked on October 7 to participate in salons in Germany.

“It was a powerful mix in the room,” said Levi. “Some of our local Holocaust survivors were elderly Ukrainian survivors who came to Germany in recent years to escape the war with........

© The Times of Israel