Open letter by Marianek-Meir Blum. He arrived to Sweden with UNRRA White Boat Mission. He was born in the Piotrków Trybunalski ghetto and was prisoner in Ravensbrück and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps - An Open Letter to the Leaders of Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Western Europe. Moral Clarity in a Time of Darkness.

Numerous children from the Piotrków Trybunalski ghetto were liberated in April 1945. In four months, they lived in the Kinderheim located in Bergen-Belsen, in Barrack 211.

 

Marianek-Meir Blum. He arrived in Sweden as part of the UNRRA White Boat Mission.

An Open Letter to the Leaders of Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Western Europe.

Moral Clarity in a Time of Darkness

To the Prime Ministers and Presidents who have called on Israel to “stop the war” in Gaza, while minimizing or sidestepping the atrocities committed on October 7 by Hamas and the ongoing agony of Israeli hostages imprisoned beneath Gaza:

Your words have consequences.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and committed acts of unimaginable cruelty:

• Civilians were burned alive in their homes.
• Children were murdered in front of their parents—and parents in front of their children.
• Young people at a music festival were hunted, raped, mutilated, and executed.
• Women were subjected to systematic sexual violence—verified by forensic evidence and survivor testimony.
• 251 hostages, including babies, children, the elderly (one aged 85), and even bodies of the murdered, were brutally dragged into Hamas’ underground tunnel network in Gaza.

Over 1,200 innocent Israelis were slaughtered that day.

This was not a “clash,” not a “response,” and not a “cycle of violence.”

It was a genocidal terrorist massacre.

And yet, in the face of this barbarity, many of you—leaders of free and democratic nations—have responded not with moral clarity, but with moral confusion. You have urged Israel to “de-escalate,” to “show restraint,” or to agree to a “ceasefire,” as though this were a symmetrical conflict between two equal sides. It is not.

Israel is a democracy defending itself from a barbaric, jihadist terror group that uses its own civilians as human shields, hijacks humanitarian aid, and deliberately manufactures suffering and starvation to manipulate global opinion against Israel. Hamas intercepts aid trucks, seizes the food, and sells it to starving Palestinians at extortionate prices—all while filming Gaza’s misery for the world to blame Israel.

Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda Minister in World War II, would have admired their tactics. The tragic part is how easily the Western world—leaders, press, and populations—fall for it. Goebbels must be laughing in his grave…

Let me ask plainly:

What would you do if your nation suffered what Israel endured on October 7?

• Would New Zealand accept rockets raining down on Auckland and Christchurch?
• Would Canada tolerate terrorists invading towns, murdering families, and dragging women into captivity from Toronto?
• Would Australia refrain from striking back if Sydney were threatened by terror tunnels dug under its suburbs?
• Would France or the UK remain “measured” after seeing thousands of their citizens in Paris and London raped, beheaded, or burned alive?

History tells us the answer. You would respond forcefully and without apology. And rightly so.

Many of your countries—Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and much of Western Europe—were built through conquest and bloodshed. Your histories include:

• Mass displacement and killing of Indigenous peoples in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and by Europeans in Asia and Africa.
• Cultural destruction,
• Centuries of systemic oppression,
• And participation in wars that claimed millions of civilian lives.

I do not raise this to shame you, but to ask:

By what moral standard do you now judge Israel’s right to defend itself from annihilation?

When you call on Israel to “stop,” do you also acknowledge:

• That Hamas has no interest in peace, no vision for a two-state solution, and is dedicated to Israel’s destruction?
• That Hamas commits war crimes—launching rockets from schools, storing weapons in hospitals, operating from mosques in Israeli civilian towns and villages, not as accidents but as deliberate tactics?
• That Hamas remains in power by smuggling weapons instead of medicine, building terror tunnels instead of shelters, and silencing dissent in Gaza with unimaginable brutality?

If not, then your statements are not about peace—they are about politics.

And that is a moral failure.

Criticism of Israel is legitimate. Hypocrisy is not.

When your outrage ignores context and condemns only one side, it ceases to be justice—it becomes complicity.

Israel, like any nation, has the right to defend its people.

That is all we ask: fairness, honesty, and moral courage.

History will record how the world responded in this moment.

The Jewish people will never forget.

Will your voice have stood for truth—or for fear?

For principle—or for convenience?

In the face of terrorism, silence is complicity.

In the face of hypocrisy, history is unforgiving.

Sincerely,

Meir Blum (a Holocaust survivor)

Meir Blum (a Holocaust survivor) and Roman Romuald Wasserman Wroblewski (second generation) in Israel in 2024.

Dear Meir

I am responding to your comments about the Israel-Palestine conflict.

I, too, was born in Piotrkow and a survivor of Bugaj, Buchenwald, and Bergen-Belsen.

I can agree with your statements about the tactics and atrocities of the Hamas attacks on October 7th, 2023. I also agree with your statement that it was not a symmetrical conflict. To paraphrase you, if I was not outraged and ignored the context and condemn only one side of the conflict, I would be complicit. I strongly therefore condemn the Israeli response.

You state that 1,200 Israelis were killed. The sophisticated military operations of Israel have to date killed 60,000 residents of Gaza, out of a population of 2 million. Many of the Palestinians were innocent women and children. Many of them are waiting in lineups, starving for food and water, in schools and hospitals. I see this as a disproportional overreaction by the Israeli government. Where is their humanity?

I also agree with your statement that “the Jewish people will never forget”. I can assure you that neither will the Palestinians, and for generations, a lasting, meaningful peace will be that much harder to achieve.

Yours,

Julius Maslovat

Julius Maslovat in Sweden.