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To Understand Israel, Understand the Holocaust

The scars of the Holocaust are ingrained in the Israeli experience, and in Israel's relations with — and fears of — its neighbors, writes Ben Caspit.
World War Two veterans return to their seats after laying a wreath during a ceremony marking Israel's annual day of Holocaust remembrance, at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem April 8, 2013. Israel on Monday commemorates the six million Jews killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust during World War Two. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun (JERUSALEM - Tags: POLITICS ANNIVERSARY CONFLICT) - RTXYD5G
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On Monday [April 8], US Secretary of State John Kerry stood at attention and observed two minutes of silence as mourning sirens wailed throughout Israel, just as they do every year, to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day.

This was followed in the Knesset by a ceremony titled “Every Person Has a Name.'' As in previous years, the nation’s elected representatives step up to the podium, one after the other, to read out names of the Holocaust’s victims. More than 70 years after the end of World War II, in which one-third of the Jewish people were exterminated by the premeditated, precise and unprecedented Nazi machinery of death, the trauma is still as etched into Israel’s collective DNA as if it happened last week. The generation of survivors is rapidly disappearing. There are only 200,000 Israelis left who actually experienced the horrors firsthand. But the second and third generations continue to stand with their parents and grandparents in the shadow of the death chambers, making solemn vows never to forget and “Never again!” An entire nation marches behind them. Millions of Israelis continue to live under the long shadow that this unfathomable event still casts on their lives, even today.

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