Rachel Goldberg-Polin on grief after Hamas abducted, killed her son | 60 Minutes

Rachel Goldberg-Polin's Story of Loss00:01

Since Hamas launched a terror attack on Israel 2.5 years ago and the war in Gaza began, far too many mothers, Palestinian and Israeli, have lost children. Rachel Goldberg-Polin is an American-Israeli who moved to Jerusalem 18 years ago with her husband Jon and their three children. Her only son, Hersh, was badly wounded and taken hostage by Hamas on October 7th. Rachel and Jon worked tirelessly to bring Hersh and the other hostages home. But on the 328th day of his captivity, Hersh was executed in a tunnel in Gaza. Now Rachel is trying to figure out how to live after her child has died.

To know that your child is being tortured, tormented, starved, abused, is maimed. And that's an excruciating form of suffering. And then what's so fascinating to me is that when they came to tell us that Hersh had been executed, then I realized that those 330 days had been the good part because he was alive. And now I'm in this place and this is the rest of my life. How do I walk through this place without a piece of me here?

Have you figured that out yet?

I'm trying to re-understand what it means to be in this world. There are millions of us right now who have buried children. There's nothing unique about me, but it creates light for me to try to give words to the pain.

Description of Hersh01:33

What was Hersh like? Easy.

Easy. The universe really knew what it was doing when it said Rachel's going to have one son, so this is the one for her. I was really blessed.

October 7th Attack at Nova Music Festival02:00

Hersh and his best friend, Aner Shapira, were at the Nova Music Festival near the Gaza border on the morning of October 7th when Hamas terrorists attacked. They slaughtered 378 people and wounded hundreds more.

What do you remember about the morning of October 7th?

The siren started and I went and turned on my phone. And at 8:11, two messages had come in from him. The first one said, "I love you." And the second one said, "I'm sorry." And that was it. Everything that had ever happened in my life from the day I was born until that second was over.

Hersh sent those texts from inside this bomb shelter crammed with more than two dozen people. Hersh against the wall and Aner near the entrance. Hamas came to the doorway and was throwing in hand grenades. Aner was picking them up and throwing them out. According to survivors, Aner threw back at least 10 grenades. When he was killed, others took his place. In all, 16 people were killed in the shelter. Hersh survived, but was seriously wounded by a grenade.

There were four young men who were not able to hide under bodies. They were all wounded and they were taken outside and put on a pickup truck and driven into Gaza. That footage was seen for the first time when talking with Rachel and Jon on October 16th on CNN.

Our son, by all accounts of the witnesses, had his left arm blown off.

When Jon said that, the interviewer realized they had seen their son being kidnapped. Four days earlier at the Nova Festival site, Israeli soldiers showed gruesome video recovered from a terrorist cell phone. That's Hersh with the bone sticking out of his left forearm being forced into a pickup truck.

Soon as we got off, I said, "I need to call you." But I still to this day am sorry that that is how you found out that I was the one to tell you that there's this video.

But we were so thankful and it made us know that he was taken alive, that he walked on his own two feet, and we also were really grateful that you did it in such a human way in this sideways world. When we had the proof that he was kidnapped, that was actually good.

Advocacy for Hostages05:01

The time is running out to save them. The time is running out to save all of us.

Rachel became for many the face of the hostage crisis, meeting the Pope, world leaders, and giving hundreds of interviews.

We want to save Hersh's life. We want to save all of those hostages.

Every day she wore a piece of tape. On it she'd written the number of days since Hersh and the other 250 hostages were taken.

I was always saying, "I love you. Stay strong. Survive. I love you. Stay strong. Survive. I love you. Stay strong. Survive."

Was it a command to you as well?

Yes. Because there were times when I would just get seized with emotional and psychological and physical pain and I would keel over onto Jon and I would just say, "How much longer? How much longer? How much longer?"

On the 201st day, Hamas posted this video of Hersh. We see the stump of his arm. It was a propaganda video. That gave us another bolt of adrenaline. Keep going. Keep going. This child needs you.

It's mama.

On the 328th day, Rachel and Jon joined other hostage families, screaming their loved ones' names into a microphone towards Gaza.

I need...

Rachel didn't know it then, but that was the day her son was murdered by Hamas.

We ended up finding out they killed him that day. And so I wonder, did he hear me?

Do you think he did?

I think there are other ways that you can hear your parents screaming for you even if you don't hear them.

Discovery of Hersh's Body and Funeral07:00

It was in this underground tunnel in Rafah on August 31st, 2024, Israeli soldiers found Hersh's body. He and five other hostages had been executed. Hersh was shot six times at close range. When his body was brought back to Israel, thousands lined the streets and attended his funeral.

Finally, my sweet boy. Finally, finally, finally, finally, you're free.

Rachel and Jon continued to advocate for the remaining hostages, but they were desperate for details about the last year of their son's life.

Orur Levy's Account07:31

Then in February 2025, something remarkable happened. A hostage named Orur Levy was released by Hamas along with two others. When Orur was reunited with his family and three-year-old son, he learned his wife, Noav, was killed on October 7th. He was also told Hersh had been murdered.

It broke me and I told my parents right away, I want to meet their parents.

It turned out Orur had spent three days with Hersh in a tunnel. And he says something Hersh told him saved his life.

Seeing this guy without a hand. And you know what he did? He laughed about it.

About his hand.

Yeah. He laughed about everything and he smiled the entire time.

He wasn't broken.

No, he wasn't.

Hersh kept 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 got from the book Man's Search for Meaning, a 1946 concentration camp memoir by survivor Viktor Frankl who adapted a similar saying by Friedrich Nietzsche. It became our mantra. Everybody there. That idea that if you have a why you can survive you can do anything.

Soon after he was freed, Orur got Hersh's mantra tattooed on his arm.

My son, he asked me, "What does it say?" He doesn't speak English. And I just left and I said, "Your name."

Your name? Because that's your why.

This is my why. The only reason why I survived was him.

What was Hersh's why?

I asked Orur that and he said he went like this. You. It was...

This shocking life-affirming CPR from beyond to have Hersh through Orur telling us what's your why going to be cuz you can bear this even this even losing me you could do it and so part of what I'm trying so hard to do now is to figure out what is my why.

Rachel was told something else by Orur that gave her tremendous comfort.

He said, "It's important that you know that." He told me that my mother spoke to the Secretary of State in the US.

Hersh told him that. He heard on the news I had spoken to the Secretary of State and he said, "No, he heard you on the news." And it was like all of a 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 equivalent of John Doe in the Jewish world is Rachel Goldberg. But we tried so hard and he knew.

Reflections on Grief and Book11:02

When they met Rachel in Jerusalem in February, days before the new war with Iran, she'd recently finished writing a book called When We See You Again, which comes out this week.

You wrote in the 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 how it feels."

That's how it feels now. I'm open to it feeling different.

Have you noticed a change?

I think my understanding of grief has changed. I was dreading and uncomfortable with grief. And recently I had this whole different thought of maybe grief is actually just this precious badge of love that you wear because someone has died and your love is continuing to grow.

Taking Down the Tape and Final Reflections12:00

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.

That's the day we buried Hersh.

So many lives. So many innocent lives on both sides lost.

Rachel has kept Hersh's room as he left it.

And that's the tape that we took down.

Oh my gosh. It's extraordinary to see all the pain and everything that is in that ball. You know, it's like these symbols of failure. What we were fighting for did happen. We got all of these people home. Not as we wanted. We wanted them home alive, but they had come home.

You said these are all symbols of failure. Do you think you failed?

Yeah.

You did more than anybody could possibly do.

It's true. And sometimes 100% is not enough.