Was October 7th Another Holocaust?

Two years ago, in my Grade 10 English class, I wrote a personal essay on a topic that was important to me. Earlier that year, the October 7th massacre had occurred in Israel. All of a sudden, being a Jewish individual felt dangerous in a way I had never felt before. So I decided to write about how October 7th could be seen to me as another Holocaust. Now, two years later, after learning about the Holocaust up close, I’m returning to that question with a deeper understanding.

This year marked the second anniversary of October 7th, 2023. But it felt different for me than it did last year. This past summer, I traveled to Europe and visited Holocaust memorials, ghettos, and concentration camps. I walked through the Warsaw and Kraków Ghettos. I stood in Auschwitz-Birkenau. I visited memorials across Prague, Vienna, Berlin, and Warsaw. Being there made something click in me. I began to realize how October 7th and the Holocaust are different — yet somehow still connected.​

The Holocaust was the largest genocide of the Jewish people in history. October 7th was not the Holocaust. But many have called it “The deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.” Standing in Auschwitz, that sentence suddenly felt real. Not just words. I remember feeling a surreal feeling as I stood in the sleeping barracks in Birkenau, that there was something quite familiar about how I had felt, but I couldn't wrap my head around it at the time. Now looking back, I understand I had felt a similar feeling on October 7th, 2023. Yet these experiences were years apart.

The similarities truly hit me there. During the Holocaust, the Nazis’ goal was to wipe out the Jewish people. On October 7th, Hamas terrorists murdered and kidnapped Jews simply for being Jewish and Israeli. There were no ghettos or gas chambers this time, but there were still entire families murdered in their homes, thousands of Jewish lives taken, and over 250 hostages dragged into Gaza. Today, some families still don’t even have their loved ones’ bodies to bury.

Different situations. Different time periods. But the same pain. The same hatred. The same target.

I keep asking myself, has history repeated itself?

In many ways, yes. During the Holocaust, Jews were killed just for being Jewish. On October 7th, the same thing happened. That is the part that chills me. That is the part that feels like a repeat.

Another connection that shook me was how entire communities were destroyed in a single day, just like during the Holocaust when Jewish communities were erased town by town. And the brutality — the burning, the rape, the executions — it felt like the same cruelty, just carried out with modern weapons and cameras. Seeing the footage made it feel like the Holocaust was suddenly happening again, but in 2023.

After the Holocaust, the world said, “Never Again.”

On October 7th, it felt like Never Again turned into Again.

It reminded us that Jewish safety is never something we can assume — not even in our own homeland.

And since then, antisemitism has exploded around the world. Synagogues vandalized. Threats. Hate is shouted in public. Friends stay quiet when hatred is aimed at us.  It feels like the same atmosphere Jewish people faced before the Holocaust — and when we think about it is terrifying.

The Holocaust was a genocide. Although October 7th was a terrorist attack rooted in the same hate, it still was “the largest genocide since the holocaust.” The connection is not about numbers — it’s about identity. It’s about being targeted simply for being Jewish. It’s about the trauma that lives in us from our ancestors and was brought back to the surface in one horrific day. October 7th, 2023, our lives will be forever changed.

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So where does that leave us — Jewish teens — today?

​We can’t let these events break us. We can’t let them silence us. We have to speak, remember, educate, and show the world our resilience. Our strength. Our survival.

We are here because our ancestors weren’t given the chance to be.

We are their victory, and we will continue to be!

We are the next generation who will keep their memory alive for generations to come!

​Am Yisrael Chai.

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We, the Jewish people, live.

We always have.

We always will.

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