192,000 Holocaust survivors in Israel strugging economically

Today, I read a news story in the Jewish Daily Forward, which has this headline:

Holocaust Survivors Struggle to Survive on a Pittance in Israel

According to this news story, there are 192,000 Holocaust survivors still alive in Israel.  Most of them are probably Hungarian Jews.

I previously blogged about how many Hungarian Jews were killed in the Holocaust at

How many Hungarian Jews were murdered in the Holocaust?

A photo at the top of the Jewish Daily Forward article shows one survivor wearing a striped uniform emblazoned with a Yellow Star of David, as he protests against the shabby treatment that he is getting from the Israeli government.

Holocaust survivors protesting in Israel

According to the news article, Dov Jacobovitz, an Auschwitz survivor, gets only $1,200 every 3 months, in reparations from Germany, plus an additional $120 per month from Israel.  What?  He gets only $400 per month from Germany.  This is not nearly enough restitution for what he endured at Auschwitz.

Jacobovitz was from Translyvania, the same place where Elie Wiesel  lived.  This means that Jacobovitz was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazi death camp, during the deportation of the Hungarian Jews.

According to Yad Vashem, there were 565,000 Hungarian Jews killed in the Holocaust.  I previously blogged about this at https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/some-565000-hungarian-jews-were-murdered-in-the-holocaust-according-to-yad-vashem/

Jacobovitz was 14 years old at the time that he was transported to Auschwitz during the deportation of the Hungarian Jews. He survived because of another mistake made by Dr. Josef Mengele, no doubt.  Everyone under the age of 15 was waved to the left to the gas chamber, but Dr. Mengele made many mistakes in judging the age of the Jews, resulting in 192,000 survivors struggling economically today.  And that’s just in Israel.

How many other survivors, around the world, are struggling on a pittance provided by Germany?

Why hasn’t Jacobovitz written a book, to earn some money?  If he can’t write one himself, he could always hire a ghost writer, as many survivors have done.  For example, Irene Zisblatt’s book was ghost written by Gail Ann Webb.  I previously blogged about Irene, who is now living the good life in Florida, at https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2012/11/25/stuck-in-the-door-of-the-gas-chamber-how-irene-zisblatt-survived-auschwitz-birkenau/

This quote, from the news article, is the words of Jacobovitz:

“In the concentration camp, we ate the shavings of carrots and vegetables,” he recalls. “We had wooden shoes. We ate from our hands, from our hat. We’d be satisfied with enough to eat from that. That was in Auschwitz.”

“the shavings of carrots?”  The way I heard it, the Nazis didn’t peel or “shave” anything.  They served potatoes and vegetables with the peeling still on.  Now we learn that the Nazis gave only the carrot shavings to the Jews, while undoubtedly eating the rest of the carrot themselves.

This quote is from the news article:

Jakobovitz longs for the dishes he ate as a child in Transylvania – gefilte fish, goulash, chicken wings – rather than the rice-and-salad fare more typical of the Israeli diet. A restaurant he enjoys in the center of the city serves such Ashkenazi fare, but he can’t afford it. For dinner, he eats leftovers from lunch.

This is hard to believe.  Shame on the German people!  They should be providing enough money for every survivor to enjoy gefilte fish.

I have never eaten gefilte fish, nor have I ever seen it.  For the benefit of others who have never had gefilte fish, I did a search and found the photo below.

Gefilte fish, which is denied to Holocaust survivors in Israel