From Auschwitz to Gaza: The unfolding horror

(JNS) — In late February 1945, among the first reports on the horrors of Auschwitz was one by a Polish officer, Lt. Wacław Lipiński, who wrote in the Polpress Bulletin, “Those who have survived don’t look like human beings, they are mere shadows.”

Decades later, those words find a chilling echo in the images of three Israeli hostages — Eli Sharabi, Ohad Ben Ami and Or Levy — freed on Feb. 8 from Hamas captivity. Emaciated, pale and visibly broken, they emerged as specters of their former selves as they were forced onto a stage in Deir al-Balah, one of Gaza’s less war-torn areas. There, Hamas p...