On January 27th, a significant event was held at the synagogue to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The event was attended by the Chairman of Azerbaijan’s State Committee for Religious Affairs, the Israeli Ambassador, a member of Azerbaijan’s Milli Majlis (Parliament), leaders of Jewish communities, around 30 ambassadors from different countries, and community members.
Following a heartfelt performance by the children of the Chabad Or Avner Jewish school, speeches emphasized the importance of remembering the victims of the Holocaust and continuing efforts to preserve their memory. It was also noted that while antisemitism is rising worldwide, in Baku, we continue to experience tolerance, mutual respect, and harmonious coexistence among all peoples and religions.
Speech of the Ambassador of the State of Israel to Azerbaijan, George Deek:
A few days ago, as I was preparing this speech, I stumbled upon a BBC broadcast from 1945—a recording made at the Bergen-Belsen death camp in Germany, just five days after its liberation. In the background, my television was showing Israel’s selection for its Eurovision Song Contest representative. At first glance, these moments couldn’t seem further apart. But as I watched, I realized they are deeply connected.
In April 1945, Patrick Gordon Walker, a BBC reporter, stepped into Bergen-Belsen alongside British and Canadian liberators. Nothing could have prepared them for what they found: 60,000 prisoners, skeletal and broken, surrounded by mountains of corpses. Many were beyond saving.
Walker’s haunting words captured the scene: “I passed through the barrier and found myself in the world of a nightmare. The living lay with their heads against corpses, and around them moved the awful ghostly procession of emaciated, aimless people. What I saw there will always haunt me.”
Today we mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Most of us assume that liberation ended the suffering. It didn’t. Survivors emerged into a world that was indifferent at best, hostile at worst. This is the story of the surviving remnant—in Hebrew: She’erit Hapletah.
After the war, many survivors searched desperately for family, but most searches ended in heartbreak. Communities had been wiped off the map. In Poland, Hungary, and elsewhere, returning Jews faced violence. In Kielce, Poland, in 1946, a pogrom killed dozens of Jews. Locals feared the return of Jews would mean demands for stolen property. Fear turned to resentment, and resentment to bloodshed.
The Allied forces gathered survivors in camps for Displaced Persons (DPs) across Europe. These camps were better than the horrors the survivors had escaped, but they were far from a solution. Resources were scarce, and conditions grim. The world’s gates remained shut, as nations that could have offered refuge refused to act. When asked how many Jews his country would take in, A Canadian immigration official summarized the indifference with chilling clarity: “None is too many”.
For many survivors, the camps were a bitter reminder that liberation did not mean freedom. Yet, from this desolation emerged resilience. The survivors called themselves “She’erit Hapletah”—the surviving remnant. This biblical phrase carried the weight of history and hope. In the DP camps, they began to rebuild fragments of their shattered lives. They organized schools, revived religious worship, and even established kibbutzim in Germany and Austria. By 1947, thousands of young survivors were preparing for a future in the land where Jewish sovereignty would be reborn, the land of Israel.
Among these survivors was Avraham Nov, born in Luxembourg in 1931. At just eight years old, the Nazis rounded up the Jewish children in his town. His mother handed him a small package containing a toothbrush, a towel, and his violin. A Nazi officer noticed the violin and asked, “Can you play?”. Avraham opened the case and poured his soul into six German folk songs. The officer listened in silence. At the end, he ordered two soldiers to take Avraham to his house in the camp. Music became his lifeline, as he survived by playing for the officer’s guests while his entire family was murdered.
After the war, Avraham came to Israel and rebuilt his life. He married, raised a family, and devoted himself to teaching music—the very thing that had saved him. As a music teacher, he inspired thousands of children across the country. I was privileged to be one of them. Avraham’s survival through music is a testament to the extraordinary resilience of the Survivors.
Like him, thousands of others rebuilt their lives by turning unimaginable loss into a fierce determination to live. Together, they transformed despair into purpose, laying the foundation for a renewed Jewish nation. Samuel Gringauz, a leader in the Landsberg DP camp, captured their ethos: “More than any other group in the Jewish nation, the She’erit Hapletah feels itself charged with a great obligation to the dead… They have seen centuries-old monuments destroyed in an instant. Women on the way to the crematoria, children in their final agonies, comrades on the point of martyrdom—all those who screamed for retribution and revenge…
But the mission of retribution is not ‘an eye for an eye’—the enormity of the crime makes this unthinkable. Instead, the retribution of the She’erit Hapletah takes the form of a defiant affirmation of life and national rebirth.”
This defiance fuelled their devotion to Zionism.
Holocaust survivors became the fighters of Israel’s War of Independence, comprising half of its military force and one-third of its fallen. They understood that survival and revival were their ultimate victories. The Holocaust survivors not only endured unimaginable horrors—they left us with enduring lessons that continue to shape who we are today. The First: Confront Evil with Moral Clarity Before the Holocaust, the world failed to grasp the true danger of Nazism.
Blinded by the desire to avoid another war, Western leaders embraced appeasement, believing Hitler’s ambitions could be contained. Intellectuals rationalized Nazism as a counterbalance to communism, while widespread antisemitism and economic turmoil bred indifference to Europe’s Jews. Even as Hitler’s brutality escalated, many dismissed his actions as rhetoric.
Today, we see echoes of this failure in the world’s approach to Iran and its proxies, including Hamas. Despite Iran’s open support for terrorism and calls for Israel’s destruction, many leaders downplay its threat, prioritizing diplomacy without accountability. Similarly, after Hamas’s October 7th massacre, many frame terror as grievance rather than evil.
This moral ambiguity allows hatred to fester, endangering us all. To preserve our humanity, we must confront these threats with unwavering moral clarity, ensuring that evil is named and challenged wherever it arises. The Second lesson: Self-reliance Is the Key to Our Future
For countless Jews, Israel was not merely a homeland—it was their last refuge. The nations of the world had turned their backs during the Holocaust, and even afterward, they kept their gates firmly shut. Israel became not just a dream but the only sanctuary for a people abandoned by the world.Samuel Gringauz, a survivor and leader in the DP camps, put it plainly: “Life in the Diaspora, for the Jewish DPs, is synonymous with danger. The nations condemned the annihilation of the Jews, but in secret, they were not dissatisfied with its results.”
This was the bitter truth survivors carried with them as they rebuilt their lives. Jews understood that survival was a task we could never entrust to others. It was a task Jews had to shoulder themselves. This truth echoes loudly today.
As Israel fights a seven-front war orchestrated by Iran, antisemitism rises around the globe. In 2024, antisemitic incidents increased by 340% compared to just two years prior, with violence at its heart—rabbis murdered, synagogues burned, Jews attacked on the streets of Western capitals. Israel’s resilience is born of necessity, forged in the painful recognition that survival depends on the strength to stand alone when the world turns away.
But self-reliance is not isolation. while Israel must ensure its own defense, it is the moral duty of its allies to ensure that it never has to stand alone. And the Third lesson: Resilience Begins with Hope. Let me take you back to Bergen-Belsen in 1945. On a Friday, the eve of the Sabbath, Rabbi L.H. Hartman who came with the British forces held the first Shabbat service for the survivors in six years.
Their faces were hollowed by starvation, their eyes scarred by horrors. Yet, as the service concluded, they sang. Their voices, weak but unwavering, carried the song “Hatikvah,” meaning the Hope. They sang not of death, but of life. Not of despair but of hope; of a future where they could live as free people, where their children would grow without fear.
When they finished singing, Rabbi Hartman proclaimed, “Am Yisrael Chai!”—The people of Israel live. His cry, carried across the camp and into the BBC broadcast, marked the earliest recordings of these immortal words. It was not just a proclamation; it was a promise. A promise that the Jewish people would rise, rebuild, and endure. Fast forward to 2025.
A few days ago, Israel selected Yuval Raphael as its Eurovision representative. On October 7th, Yuval was at the Nova Festival when Hamas terrorists attacked. Trapped in a bomb shelter with forty others, she survived by pretending to be dead beneath the bodies of her friends, for over seven hours. Only ten people left that shelter alive.
Just months after surviving one of the deadliest attacks on Jews since the Holocaust, Yuval stood on the stage, her voice carrying a defiance rooted in generations of resilience. I felt the past meet the present. There became here, and then became now. I imagined the survivors from Bergen-Belsen on the stage with her, singing ‘Hatikvah.’ In their voices and in hers, I heard the same defiance: a refusal to let evil define destiny.
An unequivocal choice of life.ובחרת בחיים!
Yuval’s courage, like theirs, transformed tragedy into resilience and hope. In May, Yuval will stand on the main stage of the Eurovision Song Contest. It won’t be easy. She may face boos. But she will stand tall, the Israeli flag in her hand, her spirit unbroken. And in that moment, as her voice will carry the legacy of generations, who walked in the valley of the shadow of death,
we will cry out together: Am - Yisrael - Chai!