"Israeli Holocaust Survivor Confronts Childhood Trauma Amidst Hamas Attack"

Gad Partok, a 93-year-old Holocaust survivor from Tunisia, was deeply traumatized by the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack in Israel, which revived memories of Nazi atrocities from his childhood. The attack, which resulted in the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, shattered his belief in Israel as a haven. Partok, who had escaped the Nazis in Tunisia and moved to Israel, felt a sense of abandonment as he watched the onslaught and wondered where the country's defenses had gone. The trauma of the recent attack has added extra weight to International Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, a country with roughly half of the world’s Holocaust survivors.