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102-year-old Holocaust survivor Yehuda Widawsky receives a third dose of the Covid-19 vaccine

Israel Home to 165,800 Holocaust Survivors

Israel is home to 165,800 Holocaust survivors, according to data released on Wednesday, January 26, by the Ministry for Social Equality and Pensioners ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Israeli state agencies define as survivors anyone “exposed” to the Nazi regime, including those who lived in countries conquered by Nazi Germany or were under direct Nazi influence in 1933-1945, as well as refugees who fled those areas due to the Nazis.

Today’s survivors are all over 75 — World War II ended 75 years ago — and around 19% of them are over the age of 90.

Over 950 Holocaust survivors living in Israel at the end of 2021 were aged 100 or more.

As women generally outlive men, they make up 60% of the survivor population. The percentage of women rises as each cohort ages.

Nearly two-thirds, or 64%, of those hail from Europe. Of these, 59,900 were born in the former Soviet Union, 19,100 in Romania, 8,900 in Poland, 4,500 in Bulgaria, 2,400 in Hungary and 2,300 in Germany.

The other 36 percent immigrated from Asia and North Africa, with 30,600 born in Algeria and Tunisia and 18,000 from the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

Those from the Muslim world fled Nazi-inspired pogroms, such as the 1941 Farhud pogrom in Iraq, or Nazi-controlled or Nazi-allied territories where they faced restrictions on daily life, such as in Vichy-ruled Morocco and Tunisia.

About 40% of the survivors had immigrated to Israel by 1951, and more than a third in the last wave of immigration in the 1990s from the former Soviet Union.

The past year saw 15,324 survivors pass away, a daily average of 42 fatalities, with many being victims of the coronavirus pandemic. (TOI / VFI News)

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust. - Psalm 91:1-2