Intenational Herald Tribune. 31/07/07. Israelis cite the Nazi genocide as one of the symbolic reasons why the Jewish state must exist. But survivors say that while the memory of the Holocaust has been institutionalized and venerated, they themselves have been neglected. Many survivors were outraged. "The government doesn't understand the significance of the Holocaust and what horrors the survivors went through. If they did, they wouldn't propose this absurd and insulting plan." "For 42 years I received nothing from the state. This grant has arrived too late for thousands of survivors. Time is working against us". "I think we should take all the Holocaust survivors, excuse me if this is shocking, and put them on a train to the airport and fly them to Germany. In Germany, where all this great horror occurred, they relate to survivors as people who need to be taken care of".
full textCritics maintain that more of the nearly $80 billion (€59 billion) in reparations Israel has received in compensation from Germany should have gone to the survivors. A large percentage of the reparations, which were paid beginning in the 1950s as Israelis struggled to build their fledgling state, went to the military and for infrastructure.
