Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose son Hersh was abducted October 7 and murdered by Hamas: Grief is a “badge of love”

Since Hamas launched a terror assault on Israel, two and a half years in the past, and the warfare in Gaza started, far too many moms, Palestinian and Israeli, have misplaced kids. This is one mom’s story. Her title is Rachel Goldberg-Polin. She’s an American-Israeli who moved to Jerusalem 18 years in the past together 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 deliver Hersh and the opposite hostages dwelling, 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 reside 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 kind of struggling. And then what’s so fascinating to me is that after they got here to inform us that Hersh had been executed, then I spotted that these 330 days had been the great 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 tens of millions 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.

Hersh and his greatest buddy 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 a whole lot extra.

Anderson Cooper: What do you keep in mind concerning the morning of October seventh?

Rachel Goldberg-Polin: The sirens began. And I went and turned on my telephone, And at 8:11 two messages had are available 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 in opposition to the wall and Aner close to the doorway.

According to survivors, Aner threw again at the least 10 grenades. When he was killed others took his place.

In all 16 folks have been killed within the shelter. Hersh survived however was critically wounded by a grenade.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin: There have been 4 younger males who weren’t in a position to conceal below 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 once 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 spotted I’d seen their son being kidnapped.

Four days earlier, on the Nova competition website, Israeli troopers confirmed me this massive 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 received 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 let you know 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 ft. And we have been additionally actually grateful that you simply did it in such a human means. In this sideways world, once we had the proof that he was kidnapped that was really good.

Rachel turned for a lot of the face of the hostage disaster, assembly the pope, world leaders, and giving a whole lot 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 instances once I would simply get seized with emotional and psychological and bodily ache. And I’d keel over onto Jon and I’d 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, preserve going, this little one wants you.

On the 328th day, Rachel and Jon joined different hostage households, shouting their family members’ names into a microphone in the direction of Gaza.

Rachel did not realize 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 suppose he did?

Rachel Goldberg-Polin: I believe there are different methods that you could hear your dad and mom screaming for you, even if you happen to 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 instances 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 concerning the final 12 months of their son’s lives.

Then in February 2025, one thing exceptional occurred.

A hostage named Or Levy was launched by Hamas together with two others.

When Or was reunited along with his household and three-year-old son, he discovered 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 instantly, “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 recognize what he did? I’ve laughed about it.

Anderson Cooper: About his hand?

Or Levy: Yeah. I’ve laughed about every part. And he smiled the complete 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 anything how.”

‘He who has a why can bear any how’ is a mantra Hersh received from this ebook, “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 turned our mantra.

Anderson Cooper: Everybody there.

Or Levy: Everybody there.

Anderson Cooper: That concept that you probably have a why, you possibly can survive.

Or Levy: You can do something.

Soon after he was freed, Or received Hersh’s mantra tattooed on his arm.

Or Levy: My son, he requested me, “What does it say?” He does not converse English. And I simply laughed, and I stated, your title.

Anderson Cooper: “Your name.” Because that is your why.

Or Levy: This is my why. The solely cause 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 exhausting to do now is to determine what is my why.

Rachel was instructed one thing else by Or that gave her super 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 US'”

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. I heard you on the news.” And it was like, all of the sudden, thank God. First of all, that I heard my voice, and that I 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 exhausting. And he knew.

When we met Rachel in Jerusalem in February, days earlier than the brand new warfare with Iran, she had lately completed writing a ebook referred to as “When We See You Again,” which comes out this week.

Anderson Cooper: You write within the ebook, “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 seen a change?

Rachel Goldberg-Polin: I believe my understanding of grief has modified. I was dreading, and uncomfortable with grief. And lately, I had– this entire totally different thought of possibly, grief is really simply this treasured 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.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin: So many lives, so many harmless lives, on either 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 every part that is in that ball.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin: You know It’s, like, these symbols of failure. What we have been preventing for did occur. We received all of these folks dwelling, not as we wished. We wished them dwelling, alive, however they’d come dwelling.

Anderson Cooper: You stated it’s– these are all symbols of failure. Do you suppose 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.