Since Hamas launched a terror assault on Israel, two and a half years in the past, and the battle in Gaza started, far too many moms, Palestinian and Israeli, have misplaced kids. This is one mom’s story. Her identify is Rachel Goldberg-Polin. She’s an American-Israeli who moved to Jerusalem 18 years in the past along with her husband Jon, and their three kids. Her solely son, Hersh, was badly wounded and taken hostage by Hamas on October seventh. Rachel and Jon labored tirelessly to carry Hersh and the opposite hostages residence, however on the 328th day of his captivity, Hersh was executed in a tunnel in Gaza. Now like so many others, Rachel Goldberg-Polin is attempting to determine the best way to stay after her little one has died.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: To know that your little one is being tortured, tormented, starved, abused. He’s maimed. And that is an excruciating type of struggling. And then what’s so fascinating to me is that once they got here to inform us that Hersh had been executed, then I noticed that these 330 days had been the nice half, as a result of he was alive. And now I’m on this place and this is the remainder of my life. How do I stroll by means of this place with out a piece of me right here?
Anderson Cooper: Have you figured that out but?
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: I’m attempting to reunderstand what it means to be on this world. There are thousands and thousands of us proper now who’ve buried kids. There’s nothing distinctive about me. But it creates mild for me to attempt to give phrases to the ache.
Anderson Cooper: What was Hersh like?
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: Easy.
Anderson Cooper: Easy.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: The universe actually knew what it was doing when it stated, “Rachel’s gonna have one son, so this is the one for her.” I was actually blessed.
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Hersh and his finest good friend Aner Shapira have been on the Nova Music Festival close to the Gaza border on the morning of October seventh when Hamas terrorists attacked. They slaughtered 378 folks, and wounded lots of extra.
Anderson Cooper: What do you bear in mind in regards to the morning of October seventh?
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: The sirens began. And I went and turned on my cellphone, And at 8:11 two messages had are available in from Hersh. The first one stated, “I love you.” And the second stated, “I’m sorry.” And that was it. Everything that had ever occurred in my life, from the day I was born till that second, was over.
Hersh despatched these texts from inside this bomb shelter full of greater than two dozen folks. That’s Hersh towards the wall and Aner close to the doorway.
According to survivors, Aner threw again not less than 10 grenades. When he was killed others took his place.
In all 16 folks have been killed within the shelter. Hersh survived however was severely wounded by a grenade.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: There have been 4 younger males who weren’t capable of conceal beneath our bodies. They have been all wounded and they have been taken outdoors and placed on a pickup truck and– pushed into Gaza. And that footage we noticed for the primary time after we talked with you.
Anderson Cooper: We spoke on October 16 on CNN, you and Jon.
Jon on CNN: Our son by all accounts of the witnesses had his left arm blown off
When Jon stated that I noticed I’d seen their son being kidnapped.
Four days earlier, on the Nova pageant website, Israeli troopers confirmed me this grotesque video recovered from a terrorist’s cellphone.
That’s Hersh with a bone protruding of his left forearm, being pressured into a pickup truck.
Anderson Cooper: As quickly as we bought off I said– “I need to call you.” But I nonetheless — to at the present time I’m.. I’m sorry that that is the way you discovered, that I was the one to inform you that– that there is this video.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: But we have been so grateful. And it made us know that he was taken alive, that he walked on his personal two toes. And we additionally have been actually grateful that you simply did it in such a human method. In this sideways world, after we had the proof that he was kidnapped that was truly good.
Amir Levy / Getty Images 
Rachel grew to become for a lot of the face of the hostage disaster, assembly the pope, world leaders, and giving lots of of interviews.
Every day she wore a piece of tape, on it she’d written the quantity of days since Hersh and the opposite 250 hostages have been taken.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: I was at all times saying, “I love you. Stay strong. Survive. I love you. Stay strong. Survive. I love you. Stay strong. Survive.”
Anderson Cooper: Was it a command to you as effectively?
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: Yes. Because there have been occasions after I would simply get seized with emotional and psychological and bodily ache. And I might keel over onto Jon and I might simply say, “How much longer? How much longer? How much longer?”
On the 201st day, Hamas posted this video of Hersh.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: And we see the stump of his arm.
Anderson Cooper: It was a propaganda video.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: Yes. And that gave us one other bolt of adrenaline. Keep going, maintain going, this little one wants you.
On the 328th day, Rachel and Jon joined different hostage households, screaming their family members’ names into a microphone in direction of Gaza.
Rachel did not comprehend it then, however that was the day her son was murdered by Hamas.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: We ended up discovering out they killed him that day. And so I’m wondering, did he hear me?
Anderson Cooper: Do you assume he did?
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: I feel there are different methods which you can hear your dad and mom screaming for you, even when you do not hear them.
It was on this underground tunnel in Rafah on Aug. 31, 2024, Israeli troopers discovered Hersh’s physique. He and 5 different hostages had been executed. Hersh was shot six occasions at shut vary.
When his physique was introduced again to Israel, 1000’s lined the streets and attended his funeral.
Rachel and Jon continued to advocate for the remaining hostages, however they have been determined for particulars in regards to the final 12 months of their son’s life.
Then in February 2025, one thing exceptional occurred.
A hostage named Or Levy was launched by Hamas together with two others.
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When Or was reunited together with his household and three-year-old son, he realized his spouse, Eynav, was killed on October seventh. He was additionally instructed Hersh had been murdered.
Or Levy: It broke me. And I instructed my– my dad and mom straight away, “I want –I want to meet their parents.”
It turned out Or had spent three days with Hersh in a tunnel. And he says, one thing Hersh instructed him saved his life.
Or Levy: Seeing this man with out an arm, with out a hand, and you understand what he did? He laughed about it.
Anderson Cooper: About his hand?
Or Levy: Yeah. He laughed about the whole lot. And he smiled the whole time.
Anderson Cooper: He wasn’t damaged.
Or Levy: No, he wasn’t.
Or Levy: Hersh saved repeating this mantra. “He who has a why can bear any how.”
‘He who has a why can bear any how’ is a mantra Hersh bought from this e-book, “Man’s Search For Meaning,” a 1946 focus camp memoir by a survivor, Viktor Frankl, who’d tailored a comparable saying by Fredrich Nietzsche.
Or Levy: It grew to become our mantra.
Anderson Cooper: Everybody there.
Or Levy: Everybody there.
Anderson Cooper: That concept that when you’ve got a why, you possibly can survive.
Or Levy: You can do something.
Soon after he was freed, Or bought Hersh’s mantra tattooed on his arm.
Or Levy: My son, he requested me, “What does it say?” He would not converse English. And I simply laughed, and I stated, your identify.
Anderson Cooper: “Your name.” Because that is your why.
Or Levy: This is my why. The solely motive why I survived was him.
Anderson Cooper: What was Hersh’s why?
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: I requested Or that. And he said– he went like this. You. It was this stunning, life-affirming CPR from past, to have Hersh, by means of Or, telling us, “What’s your why gonna be, ’cause you can bear this, even this, even losing me, you can do it.” And so half of what I’m attempting so onerous to do now is to determine what is my why.
Rachel was instructed one thing else by Or that gave her great consolation.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: He stated, “It’s important that you know that he told me that, ‘My mother spoke to– the secretary of state in the U.S.'”
Anderson Cooper: Hersh had instructed him that?
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: Yeah. And I stated, “He heard on the news I had spoken to the secretary of state?” And he stated, “No. He heard you on the news.” And it was like, all of the sudden, thank God. First of all, that he heard my voice, and that he knew. We are nobodies. We are absolute nobodies. I even say, the equal of John Doe within the Jewish world, is Rachel Goldberg. But we tried so onerous. And he knew.
When we met Rachel in Jerusalem in February, days earlier than the brand new battle with Iran, she had lately completed writing a e-book known as “When We See You Again,” which comes out this week.
Anderson Cooper: You write within the e-book, “People want hope, resilience, recovery, strength, survival, healing. They want thriving and rising from the ashes, like the phoenix from the days of yore. But the pain is chronic, ever present, constant, gnawing, circular, not linear.” That’s the way it feels?
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: That’s the way it feels, now. I’m open to it feeling totally different.
Anderson Cooper: Have you observed a change?
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: I feel my understanding of grief has modified. I was dreading, and uncomfortable with grief. And lately, I had– this entire totally different thought of perhaps, grief is truly simply this valuable badge of love that you simply put on as a result of somebody has died and your love is persevering with to develop.”
When the body of the last hostage was returned this past January, it had been 843 days since the October 7th attack. Rachel and Jon finally took down the pieces of tape their family had worn and stuck on a wall in their apartment.
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Rachel Goldberg-Polin: So many lives, so many harmless lives, on each side, misplaced.
Rachel has saved Hersh’s room as he left it.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: And that is the tape that we took down.
Anderson Cooper: Oh, my gosh.
Anderson Cooper: It’s extraordinary to see. All the ache and the whole lot that is in that ball.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: You know It’s, like, these symbols of failure. What we have been combating for did occur. We bought all of these folks residence, not as we needed. We needed them residence, alive, however that they had come residence.
Anderson Cooper: You stated it’s– these are all symbols of failure. Do you assume you failed?
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: Yeah.
Anderson Cooper: You– you probably did greater than anyone might presumably do.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: It’s true. And typically, 100% is not sufficient.
Produced by Katie Brennan. Associate producer, Matthew Riley. Broadcast affiliate, Grace Conley. Edited by Thomas Xenakis.
