E03: Profiles In Horror & Courage - Sarit Kurtzman Lesnik
Sarit Kurtzman Bearing Witness
Bearing Witness: The Profiles In Horror & Courage Series is a witness-by-witness rendition of what happened on October 7 and afterward.
I will be releasing these, one at a time, mixed in with the other posts from The View From Israel Newsletter.
Why?
Many have forgotten or chosen to ignore what occurred on October 7 and afterward. And history demands these be recorded and put in the annals of the war. Additionally, many do not have the patience to go through YouTube videos and listen to the inane advertisements every 5 minutes. Or we turn our brains off. Perhaps, in writing, it will help.
These are the rules for what you will read in the series:
The English is far from perfect. Remember, these are people who, for the most part, are not native English speakers.
In editing the transcripts, there is a limit to how much one wants to remove from the person’s original voice. It is a balance that takes time. So you will notice that though some sentences and paragraphs could read much better, the wording was left as is, with some minor corrections so that the reader will feel the original voice, horror, and fear.
There is no natural order to which witness I place first, second, and so on.
I have eyeballed the text and run it through Grammarly to catch the blatant mistakes and problems.
The paragraph structure may be off as well. It is difficult to put a transcription into an entirely correct English structure. Dividing paragraphs correctly is nearly impossible, even with Grammarly AI and other tools.
I have, in no way, shape, manner, or form, add any comments or remarks to these testimonies. In a place where a Hebrew word is used, you will see: (ex. by the editor: “and here will be the explanation”) or [explanation in the brackets]. That is the extent of any remarks.
I left some spoken delays, such as “um” and “uh” in. This is to show that the document is a transcript of someone speaking and bearing witness.
You will catch misspellings, wrong sentences and word usage, no capitalization, run-on sentences, misplaced periods, etc. This is not meant to be an edited piece for the NYT or a Newsletter. It is raw. It is as real as life gets. It is bearing witness.
There is usually an interviewer as well who sometimes asks questions. I have tried to put those questions into separate paragraphs to the best of my ability.
I have also included the accompanying Video of the person bearing witness at the bottom of the piece.
None of this is made up. None of this is AI. You decide.
One final point. We all put the share, comment, and subscribe buttons in our Newsletter. In this case, I am, without shame and with “chutzpah,” asking you to at least share the posts from this series on all your social networks, with all your friends, and anywhere you think it may be read. I know this is my POV, but I do not see why there is a question of why there should not be at the very least 100K subscribers just to read this series. Perhaps that is hubris or wishful thinking on my part. I will accept that.
Sarit Kurtzman lives with her husband and 14-month-old daughter on Kibbutz Alumim, just four kilometers from the Gaza border. While they're used to the sounds of rockets, planes, and tanks, the sounds they heard on October 7th were unlike anything they'd heard before.
For 26 hours, they hid in their safe room as terrorists infiltrated their Kibbutz and wreaked havoc on all that they knew.
Sarit Kurtzman Lesnik Bearing Witness:
The following happened in Kibbutz Alumim during the October 7 Hamas Attack.
Kibbutz Alumim
Kibbutz Alumim is close to the border fence with the Gaza Strip. There were 41 Thai and Nepalese foreigners working at the kibbutz. The militants killed between 16 and 17 of these workers and kidnapped between five and eight of them. The militants did severe structural damage to the Kibbutz’s dairy farming operation.
After heavy fighting, the security team was able to push the militants back with the help of the Israeli Defense Forces. No deaths among the remaining civilian population of the kibbutz were reported. Militants killed at least two Israeli soldiers, while a significant number of Hamas militants were killed.
[Sarit]
At about 7:30, they said terrorists, uh, on the kibbutz, everybody stays in the safe room; make sure your doors are locked, make sure your safe room door is locked, and no exiting the safe room for anything.
[Interviewer]
Can you start by telling me your name, where you're from, and what you do?
[Sarit]
So my name is Sarit Kurtzman Lesnik I am from Kibbutz Alumim. I'm 28 years old.
[Interviewer]
Can you tell us about Kibbutz Alumim? Where exactly is it situated, and why did you choose that place to live?
[Sarit]
So, my husband is originally from there. My husband was born there and grew up there his whole life. Uh, I actually was on the kibbutz in my gap year. It was the year before the Army, and I went to Michlala, a pre-army program on the Kibbutz.
I was there for a year. It's located in the south of Israel, and we are also 4 km away from the border of Gaza. And why do you have a concern because of its location? Until this time, I wasn't really concerned. I mean, I never felt very scared. We had many; they call them rounds of missiles, but we have our mamad [mamad is Hebrew for a “safe room”], our safe room, the shelter. And you know, you go into the shelter, you have 15 seconds to get in there, and then you have 10 minutes to sit and wait, and then you're fine.
The very long answer to the short question is no, I wasn't ever concerned. I never imagined anything, um, like what happened. If you told me now that something like this would happen, I wouldn't believe you.
[Interviewer]
Please tell us where you were on October 7th and how that day went. I'm sure it was one of the longest days of your life.
[Sarit]
Yeah
[Interviewer]
But if you can begin to describe a little bit about what it was like
[Sarit]
So it started at 6:29 with a very familiar sound of the Iron Dome exiting to intercept the missiles coming from Gaza. Uh, so straight away, I jumped out of bed, went to my daughter's bed, and grabbed her into the safe room. That's our bedroom, and she's in the room next door. I grabbed her into the safe room. We closed the door. We closed the window. Again, usually, because we're unfortunately familiar with these situations, we'll get a notice.
You know, they say, uh, I don't know, the IDF killed some big terrorist, you know, just be aware they might be shooting because they're upset. That's how we knew our enemy works. And here, there was no notice, nothing coming our way. Nobody. So our bomb shelter window was open. We had to shut that window and close the door, and we were sitting in our safe room, my husband and me again. It wasn't only Shabbat. It was like we were sitting in the shelter, and the missiles didn't stop. Because, like I said, we're used to it. You know we have the which is the siren.
We go in, close the door, you have to stay there for 10 minutes, and then you go out. And this time, the missiles didn't stop. I look at my husband and listen like something is weird. This is not one of the usual attacks we're used to hearing like something's happening. Um, my husband and I are both Shabbat. We don't use our phones on Shabbat. After about 20 minutes of missiles nonstop, I told my husband, " Okay, we have to know what's going on, like this is, uh, something's happening. I have to turn on one of the phones.
I turned on my phone, and there wasn’t anything coming my way. They said, like, um, a surprise attack. Just stay in the safe rooms, okay. Make sure you stay in the safe room. Don't go out of the safe room. So, this was about this at 620.
6:29 It All Began. So, we're just staying there with our phones because it's time to understand what's happening. A kibbutz is a religious kibbutz, meaning nobody is really on their phone. Uh, but because we're used to these attacks, people know you sometimes have to use your phone. Um, so this was all happening through the WhatsApp group, the security WhatsApp group. We also have a different security um app on our phones that we also use at about 7:30. They said terrorists, uh, on the kibbutz. Everybody stays in the safe room. Make sure your doors are locked. Make sure your safe room door is locked. And no exiting the safe room for anything.
So I was like, I said, I don't know, maybe I was trying to. I was probably in denial, but I was shocked. And then we start hearing noises that we're not used to hearing. Like I said, we're used to hearing the missiles. We're used to hearing the Iron Dome. We're used to hearing helicopters, planes, and tanks. These are things that we know. But we started hearing gunshots, and that isn't something, uh, we're very familiar with. And like me and my husband, we were both in the Army.
Uh, and we started hearing gunshots, not the weapons we know, meaning they sound different, um, and unfortunately, we can tell the difference. And that that we said that's a Kalashnikov that's a Kalach [the short term for Kalashnikov]. That's not one of our weapons; it sounded right outside our window.
Um, so my husband is standing by the door he was holding. At some point, he was holding the door for about 12 hours. Um, he was on the phone. His parents live on the kibbutz, and he was on the phone with them, making sure they were okay. Make sure they're also in their safe room.
We were trying again to get a picture because there was no point at which they told us. There's no terrace in the Kibbutz. You can go out at no point. So this is again the whole day we were in the Mamad [Hebrew for safe room]—the full entire day.
The security group keeps on updating us. At some point, they updated us that, um, we have three, um, three people that got injured on the kibbutz. That it's still not safe to go out. It's still not safe. At no point was it safe. You know, just to go out. I don't know, go to the bathroom and get something. My daughter, she woke up. I kept on trying to make sure she didn't cry. We were also told to try to keep quiet so they don't, you know, so the terrorists, when they come, won't know uh if there are people in the room. so I was singing to her most of the time, trying to keep her calm.
And it was, I think, at 12, we had a blackout. The electricity went out, and then it started getting more challenging. We didn't have air conditioning or a fan, and it's pretty stuffy. So, once in a while, we would open the door just for a second to get some oxygen and close it. Then they sent us a message that at 2 a.m., we were going to get evacuated. So we quickly opened the door, ran through my daughter's entire closet into a bag, grabbed two T-shirts, closed the bag, and ran back to the shelter.
Um, and then they kept on postponing. Okay, and um, you know what, in two hours 3, hours at 8:00 in the morning, they said that at 8:30. If you have your own car, you can. We'll be evacuated, we'll be uh, the Army will escort us, and we can leave. So my husband's parents have a car. We don't have a car. They came up straight by our house. We went into the car and waited in line with all the cars at the entrance of the kibbutz and then exited the kibbutz.
After that, I sent my location to my sister. I sent her the live location once we saw that people were getting kidnapped and terrorists were entering people's homes. I sent her my location. I said listen, I'm going to figure out a way. I'll just I'll put my phone in my baby's diaper, thinking that now we know that they didn't care about babies either. But thinking maybe kids would change something. And now we know that that didn't matter either.
But uh, I put the phone in her diaper with the location, so you know where we are, um. When I saw my sister a few days later, she hugged me, and she was like Sarit, which broke me. Like that, it hit me when you sent me the location. It was like, oh my God, what's going on? My youngest brother is in the Army now. he also tried coming to the kibbutz. We were texting and on WhatsApp. And he wrote to me. He's like where are you? What's going on? At some point, I wrote to him again. He sent me a screenshot of our conversation afterward, and I didn't remember. I didn't remember talking to him or writing to him.
These things, um, but he wrote to me, uh, he’s like, what's going on? Tell me what's up. I'll come. And I wrote to him to listen like there are terrorists in the Kibbutz and we need you. So, come. And thank God he didn't make it to the Kibbutz. He was in, fought there, and had his crazy Miracles there too. he had a grenade in between his legs that didn't blow up like just mamash [“mamash” is a slang word in Hebrew meaning “really.” It is used for emphasis.] crazy.
Miracles he had, um, and thank God, he didn't make it to us because the whole road to us was full of terrorists just slaughtering anybody on the way. We exited the kibbutz. He also wanted to come to visit me there. I said go. Like, you continue killing who has to get killed, uh, and we'll be fine. So, we exited the kibbutz, um, and what we saw was just, uh, a horror scene. It was just like how you would imagine a war movie set.
Up uh, one side of the road is burning on fire. There's fire on the side of the road just burning. And then there's a crashed car. And then, on the other side, there's a burnt car. And there's another car that's upside down with bullet holes in it. And another car on the side that the whole glass shot out. The entire road is Just Cars bashed and
smashed and burnt and shot. And we're just driving, and this is my home. It's my street. It's my home. This is where I drive every single day. Three times a day, four times a day. And I was just shocked. By the time we got there, thank God, um, the bodies weren't there anymore.
Uh, but I'll say the Jewish bodies weren't there anymore. The terrorists, uh, were still there. So that was a scene that we tried not to look at. but like I said it was we started understanding like this is this is a war.
After we finished, after we got uh we got here, we started hearing all different kinds of parts of the puzzle uh of who saved our lives. So it's called the emergency security team of the kibbutz, and their job is built from men who all work different jobs. They don't usually work in Security on a day-to-day basis. One is an engineer. And one is a teacher. One is a professor. One is that he works in the carrot factory. I mean, these are ordinary Fathers as they are fathers and Men. Some are younger and older, and their job is to ensure the kibbutz is safe until the Army arrives.
And what happened that day is that once the whole thing started, a few of the younger guys on the Kibbutz who had just finished their army service were hanging out. Um, they heard missiles, and they heard that it was going on for longer than usual. So, obviously, they go outside to see the Iron Dome intercepting the missiles. Um, and then they heard motorcycles.
Now, like I said, we're religious kibbutz. There are no cars on the kibbutz on Shabbat at all. Um, so one of them just peaked and saw four motorcycles with two terrorists on each motorcycle. They were coming from the back gate of the kibbutz to the front gate of the kibbutz. Um, and so right away he called the head of security on the kibbutz and told him like there's Mechablim [Hebrew for terrorists] on the Kibbutz. There are terrorists in the kibbutz right now.
So, the whole emergency security team went to the uh where they had their equipment. They got all their equipment and right away went to stop the terrorists to fight the terrorists. Um, what happened was really in the back gate of the kibbutz. Where they entered is where we have our whole industry area. We have our milk farm, and we have, um, Agriculture, and we have, as I said, many factories of Agriculture.
And the terrorists came in from there, and we have there the foreign workers. They have a little, um, a little house there. So, the terrorists entered, and they went straight to the foreign workers. Um, what happens is, like I said, when there are missiles, you go to the bomb shelter. And our enemy is unlike us. They don't care if they're shooting their own missiles that will hit them, too.
Um, I mean, we want to live. And we have we want to live, so we go into the bomb shelter. So they knew exactly where everyone was. I mean, the enemy knew exactly where all of their victims were because we were all in the bomb shelters. Because they just didn't stop shooting. So, they went to the bomb shelter of the foreign workers and slaughtered them. Uh, they killed 16 um foreign workers from Thailand and Nepal. Again, these students from Nepal came just a month ago to work here in agriculture, and they were an excellent help to us. They help us work in the fields with the chickens and the barn. And um, so they slaughtered them. Uh, 16 of them were killed. Um, I think two were injured. And I think four are still missing and were kidnapped.
Um, and the emergency security team was fighting them. Uh, they could keep them in the back area of the kibbutz and not enter the civilized area where the whole Community lives. Um, As I said, three of those members got injured. Um, one, uh, had a grenade blow up close to him, and he has bandages all over his arms. And again, like, I think it's part of our huge Miracle. They're all, they're all okay. I mean, one of them got a bullet. He got shot in the leg, and he continued fighting for another 3 hours. Another one got shot in the back. He had two bullets in his back, and they were able to evacuate him under Fire. Like again, everything is a huge, huge miracle. And, um, thank God they're all okay. They're all functioning and almost, I mean, they have some, you know, physical therapy to do, and it's a miracle.
So that was that close team we knew we owed our life to. Then, the Army came only about 5 hours after the initial attack. So, they came in in the afternoon. This team fought for the terrorists for 5 hours, and the kibbutz kept on stopping them.
The terrorists came in from eight different areas on the kibbutz. And they were just able to stop them at one time. When they came in, one of the Elder men on the kibbutz went out to see what was happening. He heard noises, and one of the terrorists shot him. he got shot in the stomach. A 78-year-old man got shot in the stomach and is okay. Again, like you just heard, it sounds like the biggest Miracle. As I said, parts of the puzzle are getting clearer.
So we heard there were, uh, Power Troopers that came. And they came in a helicopter. The helicopter landed right outside the Kibbutz. As it was Landing, they got shot by an RPG. The helicopter got hit, um, and they could still land safely. They landed safely. All the soldiers exited the helicopter while they were getting shot at. The terrorists already started shooting at them while they were exiting the helicopter.
Once they were all off, the helicopter got hit again. And this time, it went up in Flames. Um, but everyone was okay. Nobody got injured. Um, and these, uh, these soldiers were right outside the kibbutz. Their mission was to get to Be’ri. Uh, but when they heard what's going on by us that there are also terrorists by us, they also were able to fight uh the terrorists by our kibbutz too.
Um, there is another unit named Shaldag, an elite unit of the Air Force. They also did the same thing on their way to Be’ri, right near us, because things in Be’ri were very bad. And on the way to Be’ri, they saw, um, about 30 terrorists coming again to [unintelligible] to [incomprehensible] from the back gate, and they were able to intercept them there and stop them. Um, unfortunately, uh, a soldier got killed there.
So again, this is a person we owe our life to, um, another soldier from Yahalom, which is, uh, another unit. he also got killed on the kibbutz. Um, and one of the kibbutz members, he was in the Army, and he was home for he was home for Shabbat. Once everything started, he's like, I got to go. He stayed away while again under fire exit went out of the kibbutz. He took a car and drove out. Um, and, unfortunately, he was killed on the way.
Um, and my husband's best friend. He lived in Karaza, um, and he was missing for about a week. Nobody knew if he was kidnapped or if he was killed. Unfortunately, it was about a week after it started Friday afternoon that they came and told us he was killed.
So, as I said, we left at 8:30 in the morning, but the whole community evacuated later on buses to Natanya. They were evacuated to two hotels in Natanya, and from then till now, about three weeks after, it's been almost a month since the kibbutz um as a community together. We've all been living in a hotel for a month now and trying to get a schedule for the kids for the babies. Um, and trying to keep it together as a community. We have a lot, a lot of questions. Uh, I believe we're going to get answers, too. It's not time right now. Uh, now it's time for us to be united and strong together.
The help and the support we're getting from everyone is amazing. I mean, uh, after a while, uh, after about two weeks, I went to the I asked the head of the kibbutz. I said listen, like we're getting so many donations and volunteers and everything like we have to make sure to say thank you. It's like, okay, you're in charge of thank you letters. I've sent more than 50 thank you letters. Um, just again, like I try, you know, trying to stay sane.
Um, it's not always simple because, in the end, a person needs a home. Uh, but thank God I have my family, and we have support. And we have the country doing a lot for us. Um, so we're staying optimistic and staying United. That's our strength as a nation and as a people.
And you see, I don't know in the past since it was created the right way. They, the enemies, always wanted to evacuate us, kill us, and destroy our nation. But we win. And that's what we do: we fight, we win, we survive, and we rebuild. And that's really what we see and believe will happen this time.
And that's why we're so patient. I mean, nobody's saying ceasefire now because the only way that this can end is when, not if, is when we completely eliminate Hamas. And that's what we're all waiting for. And we're going to be patient until it happens. Because that's the only way this is going to end. To people who aren't based in Israel, and they want to help, and they want to give, what do you think is most important and necessary right now? For people outside of Israel to help to want to feel useful and like they're contributing.
Well, first of all, we need spokesmen. We need them to help us fight this war against the people who want to destroy us as a nation. So that's to spread the word, whether on social media, just in their colleges, or their campuses. I mean, I mean the, the biggest I League colleges and what's going on there is anti-Semitism, and it's just really horrifying. and it's us as a nation that has to fight it everywhere. Um, because it's everywhere.
If it's seeing what's going on in London, seeing what's going on in New York City, which is like how many Jews live there. And still how they're able to do what they're doing. So that's the first thing. It is just to spread the word. Social media, I don't know, rallies, whatever you guys are doing, continue because I see it, and we support it.
And then, besides that, I know there are a lot of organizations that are collecting donations, which is amazing. And it is insane, so just some of those donations will be able to rebuild the kibbutz that needs it. Alumim, we also have a donation link that people donate to rebuild. Because, um, I didn't. I may not have mentioned it, but they burnt down our whole um area of the milk farm. But they were able to rebuild and fix part of it. Again, these donations would rebuild the Kibbutz that needs it.
[Interviewer]
And obviously, a lot of your story is miraculous, and it's courageous of you to share it. I'm sure everybody watching and hearing your story will be moved, but even that doesn't do justice. What do you hope people will walk away with when you share your story? Is there a specific message, an idea, or some encouragement? What do you want people to learn from your experience? The most important thing.
[Sarit]
Now is the time we move forward and rebuild with the faith and unity of Israel. Where we're here to stay, and we're going to do everything. Each and every one of us is going to do everything so we can go back home and feel safe. And I can walk around with my daughter again on the kibbutz. And I can run outside the kibbutz in the fields like I used to. And that's really with uh Unity. And the generosity of everybody.
[Interviewer]
That was beautiful. Thank you for sharing your story.
This series is also available on The View From Israel Website.