As Israel commemorates and mourns the six million Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust, dozens of Israeli hostages remain in Hamas captivity—held under physical and psychological conditions that are not far removed from those experienced by survivors of Nazi concentration camps.
A Maariv investigation, based on wide-ranging scientific literature, medical testimonies, and contemporary research, reveals chilling parallels between the trauma of starvation during the Holocaust and the suffering endured by Israeli hostages in Gaza.
The scenes from concentration camps such as Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, and Ebensee (a sub-camp of Mauthausen) have seemingly repeated themselves—albeit under different circumstances—with almost identical symptoms: extreme malnutrition, severe loss of body mass, nervous system damage, multi-organ physiological deterioration, and above all—intense psychological harm marked by helplessness, disconnection, and isolation.
Israeli doctors are identifying that the symptoms of Gaza hostages are nearly identical to those documented by American and British medical teams who liberated the camps in the spring of 1945.
The medical literature describing camp survivors highlights extreme weight loss, near-total loss of fat tissue, and severe muscle wasting.
Recently released hostages have reported nearly identical symptoms—dramatic weight loss, severe weakness, and fainting from minimal exertion. Like survivors, many showed signs of “hunger edema”—swelling caused by a severe protein deficiency, leading to fluid leaking from blood vessels into body tissues.
As with Holocaust survivors, the hostages survived on meager food rations, sometimes less than 800 calories a day. Their digestive systems failed, as happened to many survivors who could not digest food after their liberation. The hostages also experienced high sensitivity to food, poor digestion, diarrhea, and abdominal pain—all results of atrophied intestines that stopped functioning properly.
Hostages showed similar apathy, drowsiness, impaired consciousness, and severe neurological symptoms to camp survivors.
The parallels are stark: Holocaust survivors experienced nerve damage due to thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency, manifesting as sensory neuropathy and muscle cramps. Hostages have reported overlapping symptoms—muscle pain, tremors, and general weakness—all indicators of severe nutritional deficiencies that damaged their nervous systems.
Psychological harm
The effects of starvation go beyond physical harm. Depression, post-traumatic stress, and emotional numbness—well-documented in survivors—also appear among hostages. The human brain responds similarly to extreme conditions of hunger, confinement, and isolation. Hostages have been described as withdrawn, disinterested, and unresponsive to stimuli—evidence of cognitive damage and a survival-mode mental state, as seen in ghettos and camps.
Female hostages returning from captivity in Gaza reported hormonal disturbances, missed periods, and metabolic changes, just like female survivors of the Holocaust who experienced menstrual cessation, decreased bone density, and temporary infertility. These are known physiological survival mechanisms: the body slows metabolism and suppresses hormonal functions in response to starvation.
Metabolic damage, such as increased risk for diabetes, high blood pressure, and metabolic syndrome—well-documented in Holocaust survivors—is now emerging among freed hostages. Dutch research showed that children exposed to hunger during early childhood had two to three times the risk of metabolic syndrome.
Refeeding syndrome, a deadly complication that killed many Holocaust survivors after being fed too quickly, now threatens the hostages. In the first weeks after release, imbalances in phosphorus, potassium, and magnesium levels can cause arrhythmias and multi-organ failure. As learned from history, refeeding must be gradual and carefully monitored.
Prolonged starvation
Syndromes involving nervous system damage from prolonged starvation— such as those documented in the 1940s among survivors—are resurfacing today. Hostages report balance issues, sensory numbness in limbs, and vision disturbances, matching the symptoms of the past. These aren’t new—they’re the return of known biological phenomena.
Child hostages, like children of the Holocaust, are at grave risk. Research shows that children exposed to hunger early in life face delayed growth, neurological harm, and a tendency toward chronic health problems later on. The next generation—the children kidnapped in infancy—may carry physical and psychological scars for life, as did the young survivors of extermination camps.
The trauma of hunger doesn’t end with refeeding. Many survivors developed anxiety around food, hoarding behavior, refusal to waste leftovers, or obsessive eating patterns. Some never broke the link between hunger and survival. Hostages today are showing the same trauma—some struggle to eat, suffer from vomiting, fear not being able to find food, or feel guilty around food.
Generational trauma
The consequences of starvation may even pass to future generations. Research suggests epigenetic inheritance of hunger trauma—environmentally triggered genetic changes passed to descendants, influencing metabolism, mental health, and more. Grandchildren of Holocaust survivors have shown patterns of anxiety, depression, and obesity, despite never experiencing hunger themselves.
One of the most disturbing findings in comparing these situations is the speed of physiological deterioration—then and now. Holocaust survivors lost drastic amounts of weight in just weeks—sometimes half their body mass. The same was seen in hostages, who quickly deteriorated from strong, functioning individuals into frail, emaciated bodies. The body’s survival mechanisms kicked in, but at a steep cost: shrinking organs, collapsing function.
The nervous and hormonal systems are also similarly damaged. The body reacts to chronic hunger by suppressing thyroid hormones, increasing cortisol, and shutting down sexual hormone production. Among children, this leads to growth stunting, delayed puberty, and impaired cognitive development, jeopardizing not just survival, but quality of life.
Additionally, the immune system becomes severely weakened due to a lack of proteins, vitamins, and essential minerals. For survivors, this led to rampant infections, including pneumonia and tuberculosis. Among released hostages, similar illnesses are reported: recurring respiratory infections, skin rashes,and intestinal infections. A body under long-term malnutrition loses its ability to defend itself and responds poorly even to standard medical treatments.
The painful connection between the Holocaust and captivity is not merely symbolic or moral—it is biological, pathophysiological, and clinical. The human body reacts to extreme starvation in the same way, then and now. And as we bow our heads on Holocaust Remembrance Day, we must also look at today’s harsh reality and recognize the small-scale Holocaust unfolding underground in Gaza—not as metaphor, but as a precise clinical, historical, and human parallel.