A year on from Washington museum attack, two women battle with survivor’s guilt

By Lianne Kolirin, CNN

(CNN) — Two young women who hid under a car as a gunman launched a murderous assault in Washington, DC, last year have described how speaking to survivors of the Holocaust and other terrorist attacks has helped them confront their trauma.

Catherine Szkop, now 29, and Abbie Talmoud, now 25, were just feet away from their colleagues Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim when they were killed. Now, on the first anniversary of the shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum on May 21, 2025, they have spoken to CNN about what unfolded that evening and their efforts to come to terms with it.

The four, who worked together in the Israeli embassy, had shared a ride in Talmoud’s car to an event for young professionals at the museum that evening. They left the museum around 9 p.m. and walked toward the car, which was parked close by, according to Szkop.

Szkop recalled Lischinsky, 30 and Milgrim, 26, who were dating, being just 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 running over the crosswalk, spotting 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 said. “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 were “within a meter or two” of their friends, although at that point they were unaware of the full extent of what had happened. “I thought it was a drive-by shooting,” said Szkop, adding that she only learned her colleagues had died hours later.

The Justice Department last week formally notified DC federal court that it intends to seek the death penalty in the case of the suspect in the shooting, Elias Rodriguez. He has been charged with multiple terrorism-related offenses, including counts of premeditated murder and hate crimes resulting in death. Rodriguez has pleaded not guilty.

‘Such a different life’

Szkop, Talmoud and Milgrim worked on the same team in the public diplomacy department at the embassy and were “close friends,” according to Szkop. As they left the museum event, they posed smiling and arm-in-arm for a picture. Eight minutes later, the gunman attacked.

“I could stare at that photo for hours,” Szkop told CNN. “Such a different life and we didn’t even know it.”

Talmoud described her late friends as the “sweetest” people. “They loved animals, they loved dancing, they loved music. They were such a happy couple. They’re really, really missed,” she said.

On top of coping with their bereavement, Szkop and Talmoud have struggled to make sense of the hand fate dealt them.

“That first month I kept saying, ‘I don’t understand why I didn’t at least walk away with one bullet,’” said 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 recently returned from the International March of the Living, an annual remembrance event held at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they met with Holocaust survivors, as well as others who lived through the October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel and terrorist attacks in Manchester, England, and Bondi Beach, Australia, last 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,” said Talmoud.

While at the event at Auschwitz, the women said they bonded with Briton Yoni Finlay, who was shot in the Manchester synagogue attack in which two people died, and with the wife and daughter of Tibor Weitzen, who was murdered at Bondi while they survived.

“I didn’t need to say anything to these people,” said Talmoud. “They understood me on a level that even I don’t understand.”

Living with survivor’s guilt

This was the fifth visit to Auschwitz for Szkop, who has an academic background in Holocaust research. She is of Polish-American heritage, but her father had Jewish roots. She told CNN she last visited Auschwitz with a delegation from the Polish embassy in DC just four weeks after the DC attack.

Also 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,” said 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 conversation with CNN ahead of the anniversary, Hall said he knew all about survivor’s guilt, having been “plucked out of the jaws of death several times” during 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.”

‘A little bit of peace’

Szkop has also spoken to a survivor of the October 7 attack on the Nova Festival in Israel, whose experience is eerily similar to her own: She played dead inside a car while two of her friends were murdered nearby.

Szkop said: “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 before the attack, she met in DC with a man whose son had been taken captive by Hamas. She saw him again on the International March of the Living, together with his son, who was released from captivity last fall.

“He gave me this hug that no one who hasn’t lived through something like this could give,” said 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.”

CNN’s Katelyn Polantz and Holmes Lybrand contributed to this report.

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