A Mother’s Plea
Anybody who was in Israel during those few days in the fall of 1994 will never forget how an entire country waited with the hope that Nachshon Wachsman would return home alive to his family. Both during the time that he was held captive and in the aftermath of his death in a failed rescue attempt, his mother Esther showed people how sometimes human beings are able to gather up strength and resilience even in the face of unimaginable tragedy. From Haaretz:
Esther Wachsman, the mother of IDF soldier Nachshon Wachsman, who was kidnapped by Hamas gunmen and killed during a commando rescue mission, told outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that she would support releasing prisoners who had a hand in her son’s death.
“I told [Olmert] that I cannot sleep at night,” Wachsman told Channel 2 on Thursday. “That I am speaking as a mother and not an objective citizen. I cannot imagine what it is like to know how bad things are for your son for 900 days. After I saw what happened to Gilad Shalit, I was actually happy that my tragic story ended quickly.”
Wachsman said she told the premier that “if Gilad comes home, give them my son’s murderer. I give up on the murderer of my son. My Nachshon will forgive me.” Despite the difficulty in seeing her son’s killer free, Wachsman said she does not wish to see Shalit’s family suffer any more.