Israeli Holocaust survivor says the Oct. 7 Hamas attack revived childhood trauma

ASHKELON – Gad Partok was once 10 years previous in 1942 when Nazis stormed his boulevard in the coastal Tunisian the city of Nabeul. He noticed them going door to door, hauling out his neighbors, taking pictures them and burning down their houses.

Like such a lot of Jews who moved to Israel after the warfare, Partok believed Israel could be a spot the place he would in spite of everything be unfastened from persecution.

The Israeli-Palestinian war has been a gradual reminder via the a long time that protection isn’t absolute, and safety comes at a value. But (*7*) — the day Hamas dedicated the greatest bloodbath of Jews since the Holocaust — shattered his trust in Israel as a haven.

The 93-year-old watched from his front room as TV news performed movies of Hamas militants tearing via communities only a few kilometers (miles) from the place he lives in the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon. As rockets fired from Gaza boomed overhead, Partok noticed pictures of the militants killing, pillaging, and rounding up hostages.

“I thought — what, is this the same period of those Nazis? It can’t be,” Partok said, clenching his fists as he spoke.

Saturday is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which commemorates the killing of 6 million Jews and many other groups by the Nazis and their collaborators. In Israel — a country with roughly half of the world’s Holocaust survivors — the day carries extra weight because of the recent trauma of Oct. 7.

Hamas militants blew past Israel’s vaunted security defenses that day, killing roughly 1,200 people and dragging some 250 hostages to Gaza. For many, that rampage revived memories of the horrors of the Nazis.

Partok was shocked by the militants’ brazen trail through the farming cooperatives and small towns of his adopted country. As he watched the onslaught, he wondered where the country’s defenses had gone.

“Where is the army? Where is the government? Our people?” he recalled. The feeling of abandonment brought back the disturbing memories of his youth.

“The dragging of the people of Be’eri, Nir Oz, Kfar Aza, Kissufim, Holit, it’s the same thing. It reminded me of the same thing,” he mentioned, ticking off the names of affected communities. “I was very, very unwell. I even felt a feeling, it’s hard to explain, of disgust, of fear, of terrible memories.”

The plight of Tunisia’s small Jewish neighborhood is a lesser-known bankruptcy of the Holocaust.

Over six months of career, the Nazis despatched just about 5,000 Tunisian Jews to exertions camps, the place dozens died from exertions, illness and Allied bombing campaigns, consistent with Israel’s Yad Vashem museum. Allied forces liberated Tunisia in 1943, however it was once too past due to avoid wasting lots of Partok’s neighbors.

Partok mentioned his circle of relatives was once best in a position to flee as a result of his father, a cloth broker who spoke Arabic, disguised the circle of relatives’s Jewish id. The circle of relatives left Tunisia and moved to what would grow to be Israel in 1947, a yr prior to the nation received independence.

As an grownup, he taught pictures and owned a photograph store in Ashkelon. His house is filled with yellowing pictures; footage of his past due spouse and fogeys beautify the partitions. He has grandchildren and great-grandchildren dwelling all through Israel.

Partok’s house is lower than 24 kilometers (15 miles) from the Gaza border, and so he lives with the sounds of the warfare throughout him — Israel’s relentless bombing marketing campaign in Gaza, in addition to Hamas rockets introduced into Israel.

Israel’s war against Hamas has claimed greater than 26,000 Palestinian lives, consistent with well being officers in Gaza. It has brought about world grievance, popular requires a cease-fire, or even charges of genocide by way of South Africa at the International Court of Justice.

Despite the scope of dying and destruction in Gaza, many Israelis stay serious about Oct. 7.

News channels hardly air pictures of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, as a substitute oscillating between tales of tragedy and heroism on Oct. 7 and the plight of greater than 100 hostages nonetheless being held by way of Hamas.

Warning sirens blare often in Ashkelon when rockets are fired into Israel. Partok assists in keeping the tv on, tuned in to news about the warfare. Stories proceed to emerge — a hostage pronounced lifeless, a kid with out oldsters, a survivor’s tale newly instructed.

“I’m sitting here in my armchair, and I’m looking, and my eyes are staring, and I can’t believe it,” he mentioned. “Is it true? Is it so?”