Neve Dkalim evacuation
צילום: רויטרס
Evacuees compare pullout to Holocaust
(Video) Movie produced to mark two years since Gush Katif disengagement features evacuees comparing evacuation to Nazis' actions during World War II. 'Comparison constitutes cynical abuse of Shoah,' Yad Vashem says
VIDEO - In a special movie produced to mark two years since the disengagement from Gush Katif, two evacuees compare the pullout to the Holocaust. The film, Never Again, will be screened at the Nitzan caravan community Thursday evening.
In the movie, which was produced by SOS Israel, an evacuee from Neve Dkalin, Yehuda Gross says, "In the Holocaust too, people did everything according to law. The law stated that Jews should wear a yellow patch, the law stipulated that their property should be taken away, everything according to law.
"True, they didn’t kill us, but they killed our spirit. They dispersed the communities, caused synagogues to burn. So don’t let them tell me this cannot be compared to the Holocaust."
Video: Bentzi Gufstein (באדיבות בנצי גופשטיין)
Yair Hazan, who was evacuated from the settlement of Peat Sadeh, also referred to the issue in the film. "We felt there like in the Holocaust. People came in with tickets and numbers, people dressed in black ran the whole thing and beat us up."
The movie's editor Bentzi Gofshtein said that he was appalled to see the evacuees' state, "and how badly they regret not having fought for their homes.
"The people themselves associated the eviction with the Holocaust, as the descendents of Holocaust survivors."
The Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum said in response that the comparison constituted an improper abuse of the Holocaust's memory.
"With all sympathy for the pain felt by the Gush Katif evacuees, producing such a movie is a political, cynical and inappropriate abuse of the Holocaust and the way it is remembered in Israeli society," Yad Vashem said in a statement.
