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The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust

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In the the span of only two weeks, Jews mark three separate modern holidays: Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), Yom Hazikaron (Israel's Memorial Day), and Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israel's Independence Day). These holidays, while observed separately, share many commonalities. This is a book that combines the Holocaust with the State of Israel, focusing on the issue of communal memory.

It is no secret that the modern Jewish State would not be in existence without the Holocaust having occurred. Yet, we often do not consider the relationship between Israel and Israelis to the Holocaust. Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum has long been the first stop in Israel for visiting world leaders, and virtually no Jew who visits Israel leaves without stopping there. However, as author Tom Segev documents in his study of Israelis and the Holocaust, the story of Israel's response to the Holocaust and its commemoration of the greatest atrocity to humankind is not so simple. Looking at the role of the Yishuv (the Jewish community in pre-1948 Palestine) during the Holocaust, how Israelis received survivors in the early years of the nation, and the struggle to establish national memory, Segev tells the story of the Israeli path from contempt to acceptance, and finally to compassion and commemoration.

Israelis reacted very critically to Segev's controversial book when it first appeared in Israel in the late 1980s. By the time it was translated into English and brought to the American audience, much of the controversy had subsided, yet it still makes for an uncomfortable reading, as it is very critical of Israeli society in the first few decades following World War II. As Segev describes, most Israelis were of the belief that their European relatives walked "like sheep to the slaughter." Also telling of the Israeli sentiment toward the Holocaust was the moniker "sabon" (soap) given to survivors during the first decades of Israel's statehood, taken from the myth that the Nazis made soap from the skin of Jewish victims in the camps.

Segev writes passionately about the refugees who found themselves despised by a society devoted to heroism. The new Jewish nation wanted to focus on the heroes of the Holocaust who in the face of death rose up to revolt (note that Yom Hashoah takes place on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising). Much of Israel's identity in the years after the Holocaust was defined by the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Israel, the secret negotiations between Germany and Israel over reparation payments (how much for a human life?), and the revenge schemes against former Nazis (including a plot to poison the water systems of major German cities hoping to exact the same outcome on six million Germans). The decisions to create a national day of memory and to construct a Holocaust museum were major controversies in Israel. The focus was to be not on the sorrow of the demise of European Jewry, but rather on the stories of courage by some who chose to fight back. After all, to the brave young pioneers, the Holocaust was nothing short of embarrassment to the Jewish people.

This controversial and compelling book shows the divisive impact of the Holocaust on the identity, ideology, and politics of Israel. Segev was able to use many documents, previously classified by the Israeli government, for his research, and for this reason, many of his stories will come as a surprise to the reader. Was David Ben-Gurion involved in secret negotiations to buy Jews out of the camps? How did Prime Minister Menachem Begin's "survivor syndrome" affect his governing of Israel? In The Seventh Million, Segev answers these questions and expertly shows how the Holocaust continued to shape the experience not only of the individuals who experienced it, but also the experience of an entire nation.

It has taken much healing and newfound understanding for Israel to confront the Holocaust. We can now see how meaningful it is that immediately after Passover (our national commemoration of our ancestors' exodus from Egypt), we first remember our six million European ancestors, and then a week later, we pay homage to those who fell while defending our Jewish homeland only to advance to joy and merriment the next day celebrating another year of Israel's independence. As we learn from this important book, we must not take these acts of commemoration for granted.

This one volume focuses on Israel from before its beginnings as a nation until the early 1990's. Owing to the breadth of this book, this review is necessarily limited to a small fraction of its content. Its content sheds light on many issues, including ones not explicitly elaborated in the book.

On the origins of the Holocaust, Segev comments: "Scholars of the Holocaust know of no extermination order signed by Hitler...David Ben-Gurion said that no one needed official announcements to know that Hitler intended to exterminate the Jews--it was all in Mein Kampf. All that people had to do was read the book." (p. 79). This, of course, undermines the common argument that Germans did not understand what they were doing when they freely voted for Hitler.

Segev's book sheds light on the world's reaction to early news of the Holocaust. David Engel has criticized the Polish government-in-exile for allegedly being slow and low-keyed in publicizing the extermination of Polish Jews, and then doing so only within the context of other wartime events (all because of ulterior motives). It is therefore interesting to note that comparable accusations could be made against Jewish sources in Palestine at the time. As Segev writes: "The newspapers generally published such Jewish stories beside the major reports from the war fronts, as if they were only a local angle on the real drama. From a professional point of view, the newspapers missed one of the biggest stories of the century." (p. 73). And, "...the Revisionists charged that the Mapai leadership had known about the extermination of Jews for months and had deliberately kept the public in the dark. Their silence had been intended to conceal their own failure, the Revisionists claimed..." (pp. 78-79).

Segev wades into controversial issues. He tackles Jewish passivity as follows: "Yitzhak Gruenbaum said, while the Holocaust was still at its height, that the fact that the Jews of Poland 'had not found in their souls the courage' to defend themselves filled him with a feeling of 'stinging mortification.'" (p. 109). Segev also discusses the Judenrat, and focuses harshly on Jewish collaborators: "The kapos had authority to impose punishments; many were notorious for their cruelty. 'Every one of them murdered, ' Dov Shilansky related. 'The Jews who worked for the Germans, and almost every Jew with even the ribbon of a deputy kapo on his arm, murdered---all but an exceptional few.'" (p. 259).

Segev elaborates on efforts to free the Jews from Nazi-ruled Europe, including the unfulfilled Europa Plan (p. 91) and Trucks-for-Blood proposal (p. 93); as well as the successful Kastner-Eichmann deal, in which 1, 685 Jews were freed (p. 265) to go to neutral Switzerland. Based on Document D. I 5753, housed in the Bundesarchiv Koblenz (p. 534), Segev comments: "And the idea of trading Jews for ransom was not, apparently, foreign even to Adolf Hitler himself. A memo Heinrich Himmler wrote on December 10, 1942, states that Hitler agreed to the exchange deals, on condition that they bring Germany large amounts of foreign currency." (p. 96). The potential and actual freeing of Jews by Nazis contradicts the claim of Holocaust uniqueness, which posits that, unlike the situation of non-Jews, the killing of EVERY SINGLE Jew was the Nazi goal, and furthermore that this was the very highest of Nazi objectives. Along the same lines, columnist Boaz Evron is mentioned as rejecting the claim that the extermination of Jews had been a unique Nazi crime (p. 402). He cites the non-Jewish victims of the Nazis and the fact that the Germans intended eventually to exterminate other peoples besides the Jews.

Segev's description of the red tape that Holocaust survivors encountered in securing German reparations (pp. 246-248) rings true. My father, a former inmate of the concentrations camps at Dachau and Gross Rosen, had the same experience.

Some recent authors (e. g., Jan Thomas Gross) would have us believe that the Zydokomuna (Jewish Communism) was something between imaginary and insignificant. Such was emphatically not the attitude of early Israeli leaders: "Thus the Joint Distribution Committee continually came under attack in the Zionist executive for helping Jews build new lives in Europe. 'I feel the danger of the Communist vermin uniting with the Joint,' Ben Gurion said. He called the Jewish Communists of eastern Europe 'the dregs of Judaism.'" (p. 129).

In this book, common Polonophobic views stand in contrast with some reasonable ones, including those related to the subject of the victims of Auschwitz. Segev writes: "Teveth attacked the Poles for concealing from visitors to Auschwitz the fact that most of those murdered there had been Jews...Shalmi Barmor tried to explain to the students that the Poles were not guilty of the murder of the Jews. Indeed, the Poles felt they had been defeated in the war---they had traded the Nazi conquest for a Soviet occupation. Anti-Semitism in Poland should not be ignored, Barmor told his students, but he emphasized that the Poles considered the mass murder of the Jews part of their Polish national tragedy. The students argued with him. 'Someone, after all, has to be guilty of the Holocaust,' one of them said. 'We have to hate someone, and we've already made up with the Germans.'" (pp. 491-492). Although not developed further by Segev, the common displacement of Jewish anger over the Holocaust from the Germans to the Poles, besides being an act of historical revisionism that parallels that of Holocaust denial, is a discouraging portent for the future.

It turns out that the Carmelite convent controversy had been fuelled, in part, by old-fashioned politics: "Riegner said that Auschwitz was not only a national memorial belonging to the Jewish people that should not be taken by anyone else; it was also an important political asset. Among other things, it served the diplomatic efforts of both the World Jewish Congress and Israel." (p. 474).

Segev, renowned for his other books 'One Palistine: Complete' and '1949 the First Isrealis' has tackled a subject that to my knowledge has never been fully documented in another single book.

the only problem with this book is that Segev is a biased writer, coming from the left of Isreali politics and taking a decidedly revisionist tone in his documenting the birth of the Isreali state. nevertheless this book is the finer of the three he has written for it documents such interesting aspects of the holocaust as the Eichman trial, the Kastern affair, the Havarra agreements and the treatment german jews(Yekkes) recieved on arrival in palistine. He rigourously documents a myriad of sources and illuminates the struggle that Isreal has gone through to come to grips with the Holocaust.

I strongly recommend this book because it touches on so many subjects and no other account will provide the reader with such a variety of historical events, from retribution to reparations.

I'm biased. I am a huge Tom Segev fan. I have read all of his books now and am amazed by his objectivity and thoroughness in research. This is not a book about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. This is a book about the psyche of the Israeli state and experience. Very well done! I would highly recommend this, and any Tom Segev book to any student of the state of Israel and the modern Middle East.

this is not a product whose quality one can assess. It's a fine academic presentations of a subject that interests me.

This book provides a refreshing new outlook on Israel's history and how the collective Israeli culture regards its history. Although at first it may seem controversial, it's impossible to ignore the volumes of references that Segev intelligently uses to support his thesis.

Mr. Segev's book is one of the most enlightening reads I have come across. His book has done more than any other I have read in giving readers a look into the very complicated relationship between Israel and the Holocaust and its survivors. Segev's account is at once intensely personal while at the same time giving expression to the national trauma of coming to terms with the war and the destruction of European Jews.

One of the main points I took away from his book is that this relationship is in no way static. This relationship is an ever evolving. After the war there existed a great tension between those survivors and those who were already in Israel. This conflict had a lot to do with emotional baggage each side brought to the new relationship. For those early Zionists the facts of the Holocaust were a direct contradiction to the "new man" they were trying to create in Palestine. There was shame in their powerlessness to save or help the Jews of Europe. This powerlessness was in stark contrast to the self-image these people were attempting to create of a strong and independent Jewish people self-sufficient and capable, and when they were confronted by the survivors these people became reminders of their own weakness. Of course the survivors had an enormous burden themselves. Not only had they survived the most inhuman treatment but now they were in, ostensibly, a foreign land surrounded by a people who did not know exactly how to deal with them.

One of the things about the early history of Israel that can't help but produce a certain amount of cynicism in readers is the attempt by the differing political parties to co-opt the Holocaust for their own political purposes. Every political persuasion, whether from the left all the way to the right, attempted to use the Holocaust for their own purposes. In so doing they often perverted and manipulated the Holocaust for base political gains. While these attempts should rightly produce a certain amount of revulsion in readers, there exists beside this cynical use a very real pragmatism as well. There can be no doubt that this event was one of the most important in the eventual creation of the Israeli state.

One of the things I brought away from this work is that memory can be a powerful yet dangerous thing. For the Israelis it is one source of their power yet at the same time it is a weakness as well. The creation and legitimization of the Israeli state is partly based on the victimization of the Jewish people. The memory of the Holocaust has created powerful incentives and a rallying point for the Israeli people. It has created the saying "never again", and given the people the call to physically ensure it never does. This has helped unify a very disparate group of people, and has built a mentality very much needed for the difficult neighborhood of the Middle East. Yet it has its hazards as well. Taken too far the memory of the Holocaust can push the saying "never again" into "never again to us" which becomes a powerful motivating factor to excuse any potential excesses. It also fosters an isolationist mentality of Israel against the world.

In the end Israel is a very young nation. It is wrestling with many issues including the Holocaust. There will be mistakes and misuses along the way, but in the end I think Israel will find a way to strike the right balance between never forgetting the past but also not living in it either.

This is one of the better translations from Hebrew to English. Nevertheless, I think that the same topic could be covered in a twenty page essay. The author did not need over 500 pages to discuss the odd juxtaposition of the holocaust and the ideals responsible for the creation of the state of Israel. Perhaps, some readers will be fascinated by the machinations of the various factions in the birth and development of the state of Israel. However, I found it somewhat boring. Clearly, the Israeli Jewish society before statehood looked forward to physically strong and fit young citizens who could work their farms and populate their armies. They wanted the best and the brightest. Instead many of their immigrants were the broken, physically and mentally damaged victims of the holocaust. The Israelis did not need professionals and business men and women who could not speak the language. Nevertheless, much like all immigrants whom come to a country, they were the persecuted, disenfranchised, and poor.
Again in the 80's they took in many Russian immigrants who did not speak the language. Many of them were educated, but not neccessarily in a field that was relevant in Israel at the time. The great scientists and artists of the day did not come. They were welcomed into the U.S or some other country with a stable economy, a bright future, and no security problems.
The Israel of the pioneers was composed of so many factions each with their own philosopy that it is a wonder they became a single country. Still they pulled together for their common cause of an independant Jewish state. I have heard it said that if there are three Israelis in a group, there will be four opinions. This book is illustrative of that view. Their were communists, socialists, religious groups and others. I just think the book was too long. It is very well documented with pages of footnotes. However, clearly this author was paid by the word. Perhaps, Israeli citizens will find the book more interesting, because they will be familiar with the competing political groups and dynamics of Israeli life.
I do think that Segev believes that the Israeli pioneers could have done more to save the Jews from the ravages of the holocaust. However, unless, other countries like the U.S. would have agreed to accept the Jewish refugees, I don't think they would have been very effective. England could certainly have allowed more to emigrate to Israel. This is a failure of the free world and regardless of the efforts or views of the Yishuv, they would have perished. I don't think that the information I learned was worth the time.

The Shoah and the State of Israel is a very important topic. Tom Segev in his book The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust sets out to tackle this sad instance in Jewish History. Even though the book is written extremely well and has an enormous bibliography the book actually fails in adding any new insight to our understanding of the Shoah and Israel. All Segev does is regurgitate conspiracy and fact about this dark moment in History. Segev writes about every conspiracy and critic known about Ben Gurion and the Shoah from the extreme right to the extreme left and also the religious fanatics. What he leaves his reads is a 'mish mash' of stories that are questionable at best. Even though this book is a good intro for anyone who wants the read about the Shoah and Israel it is defiantly not the final word.

I recommend you read this book in addition to: The Transfer Agreement, Jews For Sale?, Ben Gurion and the Holocaust, and Perfidy.

Tom Segev's revisionist view of the history of Israeli identity was one of the most fascinating books I've read in a long time. The prevailing mythology of the kinship between Israel and the Holocaust is revealed to be surprisingly recent, as the Jews who found themselves, all of a sudden, not an oppressed minority but the pioneers of a settler society, began to look down on their benighted brethren back in Europe during the 1920s and 1930s (Jewish literature describing the time, notably Isaac Bashevis Singer's THE CERTIFICATE, testifies to the powerful pull of the Zionist idea in the sinister days leading towards Nazism and genocide). Segev's analysis of Zionist attitudes (as expressed in contemporary newspaper stories and editorials) during the Second World War is a particular eye-opener, as there were Jews who actually sympathized with some fascist ideas who got lost in the swirl of postwar politics. While the Israelis certainly have more historical right to their homeland than, say, the Afrikaners or European-Americans, it is useful to keep in mind that the construction of historical mythologies happens in Israel as it does everywhere else.