Two younger women who hid underneath a automobile as a gunman launched a murderous assault in Washington, DC, final year have described how chatting with survivors of the Holocaust and different terrorist assaults has helped them confront their trauma.
Catherine Szkop, now 29, and Abbie Talmoud, now 25, had been simply toes away from their colleagues Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim after they had been killed. Now, on the primary anniversary of the shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum on May 21, 2025, they’ve spoken to NCS about what unfolded that night and their efforts to return to phrases with it.
The 4, who labored collectively within the Israeli embassy, had shared a experience in Talmoud’s automobile to an occasion for younger professionals on the museum that night. They left the museum round 9 p.m. and walked towards the automobile, which was parked shut by, based on Szkop.
Szkop recalled Lischinsky, 30 and Milgrim, 26, who had been relationship, being simply steps behind her and Talmoud. “Abbie was directly on my left and said: ‘Where’s my car?’ I said: ‘Straight ahead, by the Italian church.’”
“The moment I said that I suddenly heard a loud noise like a pop. I heard that a few times and noticed it was echoing off the buildings. I thought, ‘What if those aren’t fireworks?’”
She recalled operating over the crosswalk, recognizing a parked SUV and diving beneath it.
“I don’t remember hitting the ground, but I remember crawling under the car and still hearing the popping noises,” she stated. “Then it got quiet and that’s when Abbie slammed into me. Then the popping continued.”
“Abbie told me breathlessly under the car that Yaron got shot.”
She and Talmoud had been “within a meter or two” of their mates, though at that time they had been unaware of the complete extent of what had occurred. “I thought it was a drive-by shooting,” stated Szkop, including that she solely discovered her colleagues had died hours later.
The Justice Department final week formally notified DC federal court docket that it intends to seek the death penalty within the case of the suspect within the capturing, Elias Rodriguez. He has been charged with a number of terrorism-related offenses, together with counts of premeditated homicide and hate crimes leading to demise. Rodriguez has pleaded not responsible.
Szkop, Talmoud and Milgrim labored on the identical staff within the public diplomacy division on the embassy and had been “close friends,” based on Szkop. As they left the museum occasion, they posed smiling and arm-in-arm for an image. Eight minutes later, the gunman attacked.
“I could stare at that photo for hours,” Szkop advised NCS. “Such a different life and we didn’t even know it.”
Talmoud described her late mates because the “sweetest” individuals. “They loved animals, they loved dancing, they loved music. They were such a happy couple. They’re really, really missed,” she stated.
On prime of coping with their bereavement, Szkop and Talmoud have struggled to make sense of the hand destiny dealt them.
“That first month I kept saying, ‘I don’t understand why I didn’t at least walk away with one bullet,’” stated Talmoud. “When it was over, I was put in a cop car and sat there for hours, no medical assistance, no nothing, and I went home. That survivor’s guilt, it really does sit with me.”
Both women just lately returned from the International March of the Living, an annual remembrance occasion held at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the place they met with Holocaust survivors, in addition to others who lived by way of the October 7, 2023 assaults in Israel and terrorist assaults in Manchester, England, and Bondi Beach, Australia, final year.
“It’s very strange to be saying we’re at a year, when my personal healing story still feels like we’re there, especially when it’s no longer in the news and no one else is really talking about it,” stated Talmoud.
While on the occasion at Auschwitz, the women stated they bonded with Briton Yoni Finlay, who was shot within the Manchester synagogue assault during which two individuals died, and with the spouse and daughter of Tibor Weitzen, who was murdered at Bondi whereas they survived.
“I didn’t need to say anything to these people,” stated Talmoud. “They understood me on a level that even I don’t understand.”
This was the fifth go to to Auschwitz for Szkop, who has an instructional background in Holocaust analysis. She is of Polish-American heritage, however her father had Jewish roots. She advised NCS she final visited Auschwitz with a delegation from the Polish embassy in DC simply 4 weeks after the DC assault.
Also a part of that delegation was Allan J. Hall, a Polish-born Holocaust survivor from Miami Beach, Florida. “It was very difficult for me with survivor’s guilt and pain and things,” stated Szkop. “Even though I didn’t voice that at the time, people on the delegation really recommended that I speak to him.”
“I asked him if he had any advice, specifically about survivor’s guilt. The first thing he said was, ‘When young people come face to face with the reality of death, it’s very, very, traumatizing. It’s unnatural. But I want you to understand that everything you’re feeling is normal and valid.’”
In a dialog with NCS forward of the anniversary, Hall stated he knew all about survivor’s guilt, having been “plucked out of the jaws of death several times” throughout World War II.
“I said to her (Szkop) what I say to most people: Don’t let the bad people rob you of the life you’re entitled to live, because when you live a happy and good and productive life, you defeat them and everything they stand for.”
Szkop has additionally spoken to a survivor of the October 7 assault on the Nova Festival in Israel, whose expertise is eerily much like her personal: She performed useless inside a automobile whereas two of her mates had been murdered close by.
Szkop stated: “She told me, ‘I don’t really have good advice on survivor’s guilt, but what I can tell you is you have to remember that you keep living for them and find that hope that you’re here and make the best of it.’”
“That gave me a little bit of peace and it’s something I try to hold on to.”
Talmoud recalled that earlier than the assault, she met in DC with a person whose son had been taken captive by Hamas. She noticed him once more on the International March of the Living, collectively with his son, who was launched from captivity final fall.
“He gave me this hug that no one who hasn’t lived through something like this could give,” stated Talmoud.
“Thank God there are very few people who know what that is like, but in that circle there are people we can connect to and I’m grateful for that.”
NCS’s Katelyn Polantz and Holmes Lybrand contributed to this report.