WATCH: Survivor recounts how he held on to hope, as Knesset Speaker marks Holocaust Remembrance Day

“What helped me maintain hope was the desire to be a free person,” Foyer told Ohana and the youth. “I am among the last Holocaust survivors you see here. In another year, I don’t know how many of us will still be alive,” he said.

The event was held at a community center in the southern city of Ashkelon. While the annual ceremony would typically have been streamed live in the Knesset, it was pre-recorded this year due to the security situation amid tensions with Iran.

Foyer recounted to the group his story of survival during the Holocaust, which began with him as a seven-year-old from Poland when World War II broke out.

He said that when the war began, the Nazis confiscated his family’s farm and expelled them to a Jewish ghetto. However, his mother decided that she was unwilling to send her children there and instead placed them with two separate families.

“To this day, I do not know what became of my sister,” Foyer explained. “I had to hide my identity and my language so they would not recognize that I was Jewish.”

During the war, Foyer was also forced to hide in the forests for two and a half years.

“I lost everything, my parents, my family, everything. I walked alone, not knowing where to go. No one wanted to take me in. I was completely alone.”

After the war, in 1947, Foyer immigrated to Israel on his own, where he decided to study at a Yeshiva for a period of time before enlisting in the IDF.

“My childhood was taken from me,” he said, explaining how his desire for freedom fueled him during the war.

Conveying a message to the younger generations in Israel, Foyer said,  “Our enemies never stop wanting to kill us, and we must protect ourselves.”

When asked by the youth at the event what pushed him to continue moving forward after the war, Foyer said: “What gave me strength was that I was alone, and I needed to build a family.”

Foyer met his late wife, Dina, on the beach in Ashkelon. The couple had two children, seven grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren.

Ohana spoke at the event on the importance of the Jewish people having Israel after the Holocaust.

“Today, the Jewish people have what they did not have during the Holocaust, a state that is our home and an army that fights for our security,” the Knesset speaker said.

“The Jewish people did not stop being persecuted even after the establishment of the State of Israel,” he added.

Ohana said that Foyer’s generation built and fought for the State of Israel, and therefore deeply understood its value, having lived in a “very harsh world” without it.

“Do not take the existence of the state for granted. There are still those who seek to destroy, kill, and annihilate the Jewish people. As was said 3,000 years ago in the Book of Esther, and we must continue to fight for the State of Israel and the Jewish people, and so we will.”

Ohana also began the session saying that the Knesset had been a target for Iranian missiles ahead of the ceasefire.

The Knesset speaker hosted the session with Foyer on behalf of Israel’s parliament. He was joined by Ashkelon Mayor Tomer Glam and Director-General of the Knesset Moshe Chico Edri.

During the event, youth groups asked Foyer questions, and some performed Jewish songs.

The Ashkelon mayor said that seeing the youth who attended the event and heard Foyer’s story made him “see in them the future of the State of Israel.”

During the ceremony, the stories of additional Holocaust survivors will be presented, with the participation of Ohana, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and President Isaac Herzog.