The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust

by Tom Segev, Haim Watzman (Translator)

The Seventh Million is the first book to show the decisive impact of the Holocaust on the identity, ideology, and politics of Israel. Drawing on diaries, interviews, and thousands of declassified documents, Segev reconsiders the major struggles and personalities of Israel's past, including Ben-Gurion, Begin, and Nahum Goldmann, and argues that the nation's legacy has, at critical moments - the Exodus affair, the Eichmann trial, the case of John Demjanjuk - have been molded and manipulated in accordance with the ideological requirements of the state.

The Seventh Million uncovers a vast and complex story and reveals how the bitter events of decades past continue to shape the experiences not just of individuals but of a nation.

Genres: History, Israel, Holocaust, Nonfiction, Middle East, Judaism, Politics

608 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Tom Segev (Hebrew: תום שגב‎) is an Israeli historian, author and journalist. He is associated with Israel's so-called New Historians, a group challenging many of the country's traditional narratives.

Reviews

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few questions raised by this book:

1. If Ben Gurion could realistically save only a limited number of Jews from the Holocaust, should he have simply saved whoever he could or tried to select those who would most benefit the struggling community in Palestine?

2. Given the realistic limitations on the Palestine yishuv in terms of saving Jews during the Holocaust, are they to blame for putting their local concerns first and responding with apparent passivity/indifference to the plight of European Jewry?

3. Does Israel's accepting war reparations funding from Germany imply that the losses of the Holocaust can be compensated? Does this absolve Germany of their responsibility? What should take precedence -- the practical benefits of accepting reparations, or the moral high ground?

4. Was Rudolph Kastner a hero for successfully negotiating with Eichmann to save a number of Hungarian Jews, or was he a villain for collaborating with the Nazis as well as keeping the rest of the Hungarian Jews uninformed and allowing them to go to their deaths?

5. Was Eichmann a devil, or was he simply a product of his environment?

6. To what extent was the cooperation of Jews who worked for the Nazis (Judenrat, Sonderkommando) responsible for the Holocaust?

7. Should Israel's response to the Holocaust be a preoccupation with self-protection, or should it be a preoccupation with preserving democracy, even when it comes to offering freedom to those whose presence appears to pose a threat? At what point can Israel's self-protective actions be criticized as resembling Nazi behavior?

Of course, no one can truly answer these questions. Segev explores these issues and others in depth, though, by offering a great deal of historical detail on these events which give the reader much food for thought. Through exploring the complicated relationship between the Holocaust and the state of Israel/Israeli culture, Tom Segev manages to convey a great deal not only about his chosen topic but about Israeli history in general.

If I were being entirely objective, I would probably award this book five stars. The breadth of Segev's research and his ability to communicate so much relevant information in a clear and engaging manner, even in translation, is truly commendable. The book was long without being repetitive; it consistently informed and expanded my horizons. I had to take off a star, though, for what I saw as an extremely, sometimes gratuitously, cynical attitude toward figures and institutions Israelis hold dear.

Concerning both Ben Gurion and Begin, Segev attributed self-serving political motives to actions that are usually viewed as ideologically driven. While I wouldn't rule out the possibility of self-serving motives influencing these choices, I feel that self-serving motives can co-exist with purer ones, something Segev seems to overlook in painting a rather bleak picture of these figures. And while most of Segev's information is relevant, he occasionally includes an anecdote about Ben Gurion or Begin which appears to serve exclusively ad hominem purposes.

I felt this in particular when Segev described the creation of Yad Vashem. My husband, who read the book years ago, offered what I thought was an apt analogy, that of attending a wedding. When you attend a wedding, you enjoy the lovely party, the ambiance, the fact that everyone looks happy, etc. In all likelihood, the family hosting the wedding went through a great deal of tension and conflict around the details; as a guest, though, you don't need to know all that and can simply enjoy the experience at face value. Similarly, Yad Vashem is a powerful monument to the Holocaust. Do I really need to know about all the pettiness and politics that went into creating it?

Segev's views on revisionism and political/ideological uses of the Holocaust by Israeli leaders and movements were similarly disillusioning. I'm all for intellectual honesty, and I'm not advocating revisionism myself. Segev seems to have a need to show us the dark and seamy side of things, though, and I'm not convinced that his views are any more balanced than the rosier ones.

That said, I think this book is a very important and worthy read for anyone interested in the history of Israel and in the impact of the Holocaust on Israeli consciousness. It manages to be both educational and accessible. Read it critically, but definitely read it if the subject interests you.

[Korkodus · Rating 5 out of 5]

A solidly documented book about the Jewish people between 1930s and 1990s.
Tom Segev opened my eyes on a totally new world of meanings of Holocaust, the Israeli state creation and its perpetual conflict with the Arab world.
It needs to be read with care (not everything is as black and white as he sometimes argues it), it needs to be read with patience (heavy in terms of details, data), it needs to be read with passion (for getting to know more on the topic)
I have started reading the book as I knew very little about its topic and as I was finishing reading it I became aware of how little I knew - my personal horizon just got expanded beyond expectations

[Meirav Rath · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very thorough and interesting book, Segev starts from the very beginning - the fifth exodus to Israel, of german jews fleeing the nazis - and ends with recent modern reactions of the world and Israel to the holocaust (Mause included...). Segev's style is highly readable and personal, keeping the book very vivid and interesting.
A 'must read' to anyone who wishes to understand Israel, the responses to the holocaust and its survivors.

Highly recommended!

[Jarosław · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jedna z najważniejszych spośród przetłumaczonych na język polski książek dla podjęcia próby zrozumienia współczesnego państwa Izraela.

[Sakib Ahmed · Rating 5 out of 5]

The unfathomable genocide during which Hitler’s Nazi Germany and its collaborators killed about six million Jews – known today as the Holocaust – took place in Europe between the years 1933 and 1945. And the question driving the author is: How does a tragedy of that scale shape the identity of the “seventh million”? That is, the entire Jewish population of Israel – including those who already lived in former Palestine and all the Jewish survivors who moved there after the war.

These blinks examine the Holocaust’s influence on the Israeli nation as well as its politics, culture and identity. You’ll learn how the early Jews living in Palestine struggled with the arrival of European refugees and Holocaust survivors in Palestine, and how the young State of Israel dealt with the horrendous events of the past.

The history of the Holocaust is deeply embedded in the politics, culture and identity of the State of Israel. While early Zionists struggled to acclimate to the arrival of European refugees and Holocaust survivors, the fear of another genocide pushed Israel to invade its neighbors, sparking a climate of racism.

[Tony Dib · Rating 3 out of 5]

في هذا البحث الضخم الغزير بالمعلومات الهامة، يرفع توم سيغيف السقف بلا شك، لكن بدون أن يحطمه للأسف. فهو يُغضب اليمين دون إقناع اليسار. هذا أمرٌ جيد عموماً، لكن ليس في قضية تحوّل ضحية الإبادة إلى ممارسٍ لها. لا يعود عند ذلك مكانٌ للرمادي حتى لو كان الغرض منه دراسة "موضوعية" للتاريخ.

[Charity U · Rating 4 out of 5]

First part of the book was five stars; second half, three. So I split the difference! Wow, this book was...remarkable. Essentially, it's about what the Jews in Israel knew as the Holocaust happened, what their response was; and then also, what it was like for them and for the Jews who were coming into Israel as it was becoming a nation, many of whom had suffered through and survived the Holocaust. The parts I found less interesting were some of the extensive trials that were talked about in the latter parts of the book. For the most part, though, this made my brain think about new elements of this which I'd never considered before. Fascinating.

[HappyHarron · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant, comprehensive and critical study of the politicization of the Holocaust in Israel. Segev’s thesis is that Israel has always taken the wrong lessons away from the Holocaust - first by pushing it into the background and stigmatizing survivors. Then by turning it into a justification for Israel’s existence, a mythology which links Israel to Jewish identity and justifies any number of racist imperial policies or human rights abuses. The lessons of the Holocaust, as they pertain to racism, democracy and humanism have all but been shoved into the background. A must read for anyone interested in the role the Holocaust plays in Israeli identity.

[Cool_guy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I often hear people in anti-Zionist circles express bewilderment about the Israeli genocide against Palestine. What about the Holocaust? The question is based on a naïve assumption: that the lessons of the Holocaust are universal, rather than particular. And while it’s absolutely true that similar horrors will happen again and again as long as greed and racism dominate human affairs, those are mere abstractions. The subjective experience of most Holocaust survivors was one of terror and pain, inflicted upon them because they were Jews.

I grew up in a liberal, secular Jewish family. We went to temple not out of religious devotion but as a way to maintain our cultural Jewishness. That was true for basically all of the congregants. The synagogue translated Jewish values into a universal, secular ideal. But the universalism stopped at the Holocaust. The Nazi slaughter was foundational to Jewish identity. There were other genocides, of course, and we had an obligation to stop them. But nothing could ever compare to Auschwitz. As Tom Segev shows, this belief in the unsurpassable nature of the Holocaust is embedded in Israeli identity. Israelis don’t fear a genocide of the Jewish people; they fear a resumption of the Holocaust.

Every nationalist has been fucked over in a unique way, and is owed something by the world. Often the kernel of the grievance is legitimate: Germany after WWI, for example, was needlessly humiliated at Versailles. Sometimes they aren’t. The Trump administration seems to think that Ukraine tricked us into a proxy war with Russia. JD Vance whined to Zelensky about the insufficient thank yous from Ukraine for America’s support, using the language of an upset spouse. Most nationalisms break down into childish petulance when allowed to fester for too long.

Other than vicious anti-semites, no one doubts that the Jews had legitimate grievances after World War II. It’s hard to imagine how those could’ve been repaid -- a crude term -- without a state, given the political reality of post-1945 Europe. This isn’t a justification, but an observation. Sometimes people complain that the Europeans should’ve carved off a bit of Germany for the Jews. This strikes me as naive: why would a Jew who no longer felt that they could ever belong in their former country feel safe in the heart of Europe? There were other plans for statehood, most of them preposterous. Harold Ickes proposed Alaska. Ho Chi Mihn is supposed to have suggested to David Ben-Gurion that the Jews move to Vietnam. Against these, Zionism had the advantage of being a Jewish led project.

There were surprisingly few attempts to seek revenge on Germany. Ad hoc Jewish hit teams came together in displaced persons camps; they assassinated at most a few hundred collaborators and perpetrators. A paramilitary group formed around Abba Kovner, a Jewish partisan fighter. They hatched a plan to kill six million Germans by poisoning Nuremberg's drinking water. When that failed, they poisoned the bread in a POW camp for SS officers. About a thousand came down with food poisoning.

Instead they brought their grievances to Palestine and took them out on the Palestinians. Early Israelis understood the absurdity of this situation. Ben Gurion is supposed to have remarked to a friend that if he was an Arab leader, he would never make peace with Israel. They weren’t responsible for the Holocaust. Yet they were being made to pay the price. That same year, at a eulogy for an Israeli soldier killed by a Palestinian from a Gazan refugee camp, Moshe Dayan asked, “why should we blame them for their burning hatred for us?” Israel had stolen their land and forced them into refugee camps. But it must be done, he said. The “millions of Jews who were exterminated because they had no land” demanded it.

Israelis lost this cynical understanding as time went on. The grievances remain. The Israeli government spends millions on Holocaust remembrance. Everywhere there are monuments to the dead; it is at the center of the Israeli educational curriculum. On its face, this is a good thing. The Holocaust must not be forgotten. But alongside the memorialization, Israelis learn that their mere existence is revenge. I can understand a group of highschoolers feeling this as they walk through the gates of a concentration camp with the Israeli flag wrapped around their shoulders. But vengeance metastasizes. When an Israeli air strike flattens a hospital, it is in the minds of the average Israeli retribution for the victims of the would be Holocaust which would’ve happened had the Arabs gotten what they wanted. As the Holocaust gets further and further away, it has transformed into an evil fantasy in the minds of those who were not alive to experience it. This explains, I think, the phenomenon of some Israeli young people who get copies of their grandparents’ concentration camp tattoos on their own arms.

In 1988, Haartez published an essay by the Israeli historian and Auschwitz survivor Yehuda Elkana called, “For Forgetting.” It was the second year of the intifada, six years after Sabra and Shatila. By demanding children to “remember,” he argued, Israel was inculcating them with a “long standing, blind hatred”. Better, he wrote, “to give oneself over to the construction of our future -- and not to deal, morning and evening, with symbols, ceremonies, and lessons of the Holocaust. The rule of historical remembrance must be uprooted from our lives.”

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 3 out of 5]

the wild Amazone


Superb and well-documented

This book provides a refreshing new outlook on Israel's history and how the collective Israeli culture regards its history. Although at first it may seem controversial, it's impossible to ignore the volumes of references that Segev intelligently uses to support his thesis.

Shiran Pasternak

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this book details the history of Palestinian/Zionist Jewry before, during and after WW II

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Tom Segev is a challenging historian and this is a very well-written, thought-provoking work. I used it as one of my sources for my senior thesis in my BA. It gave me a new appreciation for how Israelis coped with the challenges presented by Holocaust survivors - and how the survivors themselves coped with adjusting to "normal" life after the horrors of Nazi treatment in concentration camps.

D. Bryner

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Well respected Israeli historian

Interesting book on an important topic by a respected Israeli historian.

Quite a bit on collaboration of various kinds while trying to remain dispassionate about it. An account of the Kastner affair that seemed revisionist at times but may be only cautious and as balanced as one can ask for.

Barely mentions the Palestinians, obviously, but none the worse for that.

Andy Dyer

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a rare and interesting view

Segev renowned for his other books, One Palistine: Complete, and 1949: The First Isrealis, has tackled a subject that to my knowledge has never been fully documented in another single book.

the only problem with this book is that Segev is a biased writer, coming from the left of Isreali politics and taking a decidedly revisionist tone in his documenting the birth of the Isreali state.

nevertheless this book is the finer of the three he has written for it documents such interesting aspects of the holocaust as the Eichman trial, the Kastern affair, the Havarra agreements and the treatment German jews (Yekkes) recieved on arrival in palistine. He rigourously documents a myriad of sources and illuminates the struggle that Isreal has gone through to come to grips with the Holocaust.

I strongly recommend this book because it touches on so many subjects and no other account will provide the reader with such a variety of historical events, from retribution to reparations.

Seth J. Frantzman

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Richly documented and written with great passion.
Elie Wiesel, Los Angeles Times Book Review

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[Danilo Lipisk · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is excellent, especially when the author (who clearly opposes the State of Israel, especially with regard to the figure of Ben-Gurion) presents more historical facts and less of his personal interpretations.

Segev provides a detailed view of how the Holocaust influenced the formation of the State of Israel and the collective psychology of Israelis.

The research he has done is enormous, an immense work. From the rise of Nazism, the destruction of Judaism in Europe, the drama of the 100,000 refugees who were unable to reach Palestine, the lives of the few survivors, how they led their lives in the new state, how the Holocaust served as a catalyst in the decision to partition Palestine in 1947, the contempt of the "new israeli man" in relation to the "Jew who went to the slaughterhouse without resisting", the internal split over whether to have diplomatic relations with Germany, the split over whether or not to pay reparations for the crimes committed by the Nazis, the hunt for Nazi criminals, the history of museums dedicated to the Shoah, their political use in the 1980s.

The book covers all this and more.

In short, "The Seventh Million" is a valuable contribution to the understanding of the memory of the Holocaust and its influence on Israeli society. A well-researched book that is essential for any discussion of the impact of the Holocaust on Israeli identity and politics.

[Santa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not enough but it's a step forward in shattering myth based on linkage of the Holocaust and Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, myth that links Zionism and Israel with Jewishness, and acknowledgment that victim of prosecution, a prosecuted has turned prosecutionist practically over night while using Holocaust and self-victimization as justification. We need more, Palestinians need more, Jews need more, world need more.

[The Contented · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overcome by a deep sadness - this was a very courageous book to have researched and written. Will write a better review when there is time.

PS. At 500+ pages of really dense text (about 1000 pages of normal font), this is not a book you will be able to zip through. It needs to be read more slowly than that in any case, with much reflection.

[Paulo Reimann · Rating 5 out of 5]

More stars

Fantastic history. Well explained and written. Inteligent, insightful. Easy reading and deep at the same time. I would call it the best book I have read this year. By far.

[Susan Webb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating and revealing. Very relevant for today. This was published in 1993, written before the Oslo process and the assassination of Prime MInister Yitzhak Rabin, not to mention the current Israel-Gaza war. It all relates to what Segev discusses in this book.

[KDima Kletsel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great

[Julia Wojtyna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crucial for understanding ongoing issues happening in Middle East.

[Bibliophile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tom Segev’s The Seventh Million is a fascinating look at how Israel and the Israelis reacted to the Holocaust. He begins his tale in Mandate Palestine, when the Jewish Agency is trying very hard to bring more European Jews to Palestine, but with the caveats that they must be Zionists who are interested in creating a new state. Segev emphasizes the relative helplessness of the Agency vis-à-vis British immigration policy and relates several fascinating tales of attempts to rescue sections of European Jewry from their impending doom. He also details how postwar Israel saw the vast majority of Holocaust victims as “lambs led to the slaughter” and how the ghetto fighters and members of various resistance groups were valorized as Israelis before there was an Israel, and how much of this perception changed after the Eichmann trial as well as the complex and ferocious negotiations surrounding the acceptance of German compensation for Holocaust victims. Segev concludes by discussing how the Holocaust became instrumentalized by various political parties in the 1970s and 1980s to fit their own goals. I found his work absolutely fascinating (as well as incredibly sad – for example, the poor children who had lived through unimaginable horrors in Europe were encouraged to “forget” all about it, and the psychic damage this must have done them is incalculable.) This is a deeply intelligent and moving work and a valuable addition to the mass of literature on the Holocaust.

[Daryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a start, but I think better books will and should be written about this subject. The English translation shows Segev to be a good writer and there are parts of this book--like the early chapters about the political maneuvering by opposing Zionist parties in the Displaced Persons camps and the ill-fated strategies of revenge against the Nazis--that deserve to be read by anyone interested in the founding of the state of Israel. But Segev seems overly credulous when citing political memoirs, especially when these are given as the only sources to support his interpretation of an event. This is disappointing, given that Segev has a Ph.D. in history. Segev also doesn't offer much in terms of an overall argument--his main point is pretty commonplace: that the framing of the Holocaust as a lesson about the importance of universal human rights (once the dominant narrative in Israel) is preferrable to the current framing of the Holocaust as a lesson about the necessity for a militant and well-armed Jewish state to protect the unwitting Jews of the Diaspora from the ever-present anti-Semitism of Europe and the Islamic world.

[Yehudis Dick Meyers · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author is completely irreverent to the holy grails of Israeli/Jewish society, including the Holocaust itself. This was to my occasional horror. (Menachem Begin only misses the very bottom of the author's respect list because he's beat by Kahane who "was ugly and spoke bad Hebrew" and who "no one thought ... had any more influence than lavatory graffiti." But even less extreme figures or events don't get much more love.) However, it's precisely this irreverence that allows the book to describe the way Israeli society relates to the things we treat as sacred.
I started reading the book feeling like this was a 5 star book because I learned a lot about the origins of the arguments and mentalities about Zionism and the Holocaust today but I had a hard time finishing it hence 3.5 stars.
Apologies if I'm being incoherent.

[Maddy Kumar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tom Segev's account of the Holocaust and the Jewish exodus to Israel deserves to be read by anyone interested in the founding of the state of Israel ; and how it has shaped their personal and political identity.It includes the early accounts of the political maneuvering between the Zionists and the Nazis, Eichmann's debatable strategic decisions and the moral considerations that stem from whether Israel accepting reparations funding from Germany imply that this is suitable compensation for the borne losses.
There is intensive breadth in his research and understanding of the subject, and is a great addition to the considerable literature on the Holocaust.

[Piotr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Posypała mi się ta książka; z kolejnym rozdziałem miałem wrażenie, że była pisana za szybko, podobnie tłumaczona. I sam Segev po uszy tkwi w wewnątrz-izraelskich politycznych rozgrywkach. Zbyt nierówna jak na taki temat. Rzeczy najciekawsze na koniec: wyjazdy młodych Izraelczyków do Polski, rzeczywistość izraelska dzisiaj - za krótko, za pobieżnie. W sumie bardzo ciekawa książka.
Jak obuchem wali w głowę zakończenie, mowi jedna z ocalałych, w trakcie wizyty w Polsce: "Polscy Żydzi zamordowani w Zagładzie zabrali ze sobą radość i od tamtej pory na tej ziemi nie ma radości."

[Nesreen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written by one of Israel's "New Historians," The Seventh Million is one among many laudable texts written over the last 15 to 20 years that puts some of the most damaging Zionist myths to rest.

Using scholarship, investigation, and historic records, Segev gives us a portrait of the ruthless campaign conceived by the Zionists to uproot hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their ancestral land. There never was "A land without people and a people without a land."

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book very slow going despite the important topic -- how Israel has engaged with the Holocaust. Perhaps the translation was weak. It is a repetitious, highly editorialized, insider's account, much more focused on insider political accounts than personal stories, and has an irritating tendency to leap about in time. I thought it was too long, too. It's worth reading but I wish someone else who writes more fluidly and personally had covered the topic.

[Schopfi · Rating 4 out of 5]

An honest book on the struggles of memory, identity and the politics shaping and beeing shaped by them. Never Forget - that's something that is easily said. The hard part: where to go from there. This hard look on Israels collective memory shows us how difficult the task really is, if we take it seriously.
For everyone who is convinced that learning from the past is easy: There is a lot of "Past" in human history, and people have tried to learn from it for a long time...

[Siobhan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not the most authoritative observation about the Shoah. Then again, I disagree profoundly with his thesis abouty David ben Gurion and other Israeli leaders and their part vis a vis the Shoah. He gets some facts correct but he jumps to conclusions hat have no basis in reality!

[Michal · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars just for the fascinating look at the Segev`s perception of modern Israel. Some of the part with Ben Gurion could be more elaborated. But for Central European reader is it worth reading with quite surprising facts

[Marcella · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book of Israeli history. Recommended to anyone who wants to understand Israel and the consequences that the Holocaust had on its people.

[Catherine Schneider]

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