After escaping Holocaust, thousands of Israeli survivors struggle with poverty, loneliness

In April 2013, some three months after elections and the establishment of a new government, the Knesset’s Social Welfare Committee held a heated discussion that is etched deep in Israelis' memories. The agenda focused on the results of a survey conducted by the Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Survivors that found 67% of survivors unhappy with the way the government was dealing with their specific needs. Some 22% of respondents even said that the government's handling of Holocaust survivors had deteriorated.

Apart from the jarring statistics, another element that made the debate so hard to forget were the cries of Dora Roth, a Holocaust survivor who asked in the simplest of terms, “What did you do with the money?! Seeing a Holocaust survivor that doesn't have money for food or heat is your disgrace, the disgrace of this house [of parliament]!”

This was not the first time that the people of Israel had been exposed to the horrific economic crisis faced by Holocaust survivors. In 2007, the journalists Orly Federbush and Guy Meroz produced the documentary film “Reparation Morals.” In it, they revealed that 80,000 Holocaust survivors in Israel lived in abject poverty. Many of them lacked money for medicine or fuel to heat their homes in winter.

The question raised at that time was when did the state disavow its responsibility? What exactly happened to the $800 million in reparations that the German government gave to Israel in the 1950s? That money should have gone to meet all of the survivors’ needs until the end of their lives. Since the release of “Reparation Morals,” before every Holocaust Memorial Day and before every election, the issue of “needy survivors” makes the headlines. That is why it was especially surprising to learn during the 2013 Knesset committee debate that six years on, there were still Holocaust survivors going to bed hungry.