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Haim Shore
Professor Emeritus

Hamas and Nazi Terezin Camp – Find the Differences

On 25th of January, 2025, Hamas released four Israeli hostages (female soldiers abducted from their beds in a base in southern Israel on October 7th, 2023). The four women were forced to parade in the Palestine-Square of Gaza, to the cheers of a mob of Gazan Arabs, most of them armed, and then led to a raised platform, all smiles, to wave cheerfully to the cheering mob, so that no one has any doubt how much they have enjoyed their 477 days in the captivity of Hamas. Representatives of the Red-Cross were present, witnessing the shameful parade in Gaza, as the hostages were soon to be delivered to these representatives to be re-delivered same day to Israeli IDF.

For me, son to parents whose both families were exterminated in the Holocaust, my first association, as I was witnessing this shameful scene, was the story of the visit of the Red-Cross to Nazi-occupied Jewish Theresienstadt Ghetto

Here is from Wikipedia on the Nazi-occupied Jewish Theresienstadt Ghetto and the Red-Cross visit, June 1944, to the ghetto (referrals to references omitted):

“In February 1944, the SS embarked on a “beautification” (German: Verschönerung) campaign to prepare the ghetto for the Red Cross visit. Many “prominent” prisoners and Danish Jews were re-housed in private, superior quarters. The streets were renamed and cleaned; sham shops and a school were set up; the SS encouraged the prisoners to perform an increasing number of cultural activities, which exceeded that of an ordinary town in peacetime. As part of the preparations, 7,503 people were sent to the family camp at Auschwitz in May; the transports targeted sick, elderly, and disabled people who had no place in the ideal Jewish settlement”.

Wikipedia on “Theresienstadt Ghetto and the Red-Cross”:

“In 1944, the ghetto was “beautified” in preparation for a delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Danish government. The delegation visited on 23 June; ICRC delegate Maurice Rossel wrote a favorable report on the ghetto and claimed that no one was deported from Theresienstadt. In April 1945, another ICRC delegation was allowed to visit the ghetto; despite the contemporaneous liberation of other concentration camps, it continued to repeat Rossel’s erroneous findings.”

About the Author
Haim Shore has been a tenured full professor (retired, 2015) of the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. His research concentrates on quality and reliability engineering and on statistical modeling. He owns five academic degrees and has published seven books and over a hundred peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. His most recent (published) research addressed statistical modeling, estimation and monitoring of surgery duration. Professor Shore personal blog: haimshoreblog.wordpress.com (reachable also via haimshore.blog).
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