He was held hostage by Hamas terrorists for more than 500 days. He thought he saw his girlfriend die in front of him. Both survived and spoke Wednesday night at an exhibit that remembers all of those killed on Oct. 7, 2023.

Eliya Cohen said the conditions in the tunnels where he and others were held captive by Hamas were terrible. Surviving off very little to eat and drink, he said the only thing that kept him going was his mindset — and trying to remain positive in a terrible situation.

“It’s not just a poster you put on the wall, and that’s it. It’s a real man with a real family, with a real girlfriend, with a real life that was at a party and then, poof, he was kidnapped,” said his fiancée, Ziv Abud.

Abud and Cohen both attended the Nova Music Festival in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. As the sun rose, the music stopped, and Hamas terrorists moved in.

The couple hid in a roadside bomb shelter, shoulder-to-shoulder with others who attended the concert. They said militants opened fire inside the narrow shelter as Abud and Cohen hid under bodies for survival.

Cohen was convinced his girlfriend was dead as he was thrown into the back of a truck and taken hostage, kept in tunnels in Gaza.

“A can [of food] for four people; one for four people a day, and we shower once every three months,” he said.

Artifacts from the festival – portable toilets with bullet holes, burned out cars, half-eaten snacks, and personal items left behind – are a snapshot in time of the horror and chaos of the Nova Music Festival now on display in an exhibit on display in Chicago through the weekend.

“Personally, this is my healing; being at the exhibit and telling the story,” said Nova Music Festival survivor Noa Beer, who lost 12 people on the day of the Hamas attack.

Beer travels with the exhibit, “Oct. 7, 6:29 a.m., The Moment Music Stood Still: The Nova Music Festival Exhibition.”

“If we ever forget that this happen if we allow people to deny that this happened, it will just happen again and again,” Beer said.

After 505 days as a hostage, Cohen was released by Hamas in January and reunited with Abud. Last month, he proposed.

“I didn’t know that she alive,” he said. “This is miracle that she’s sitting safe next to me.”

Survivors said it’s important to share their story and the atrocities of Oct. 7 so that people will never forget.

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