Introduction

Abstract

Recent years have seen an increased interest within Israeli society in the social integration of the Holocaust survivors — those who remained of the European Jewish communities after the Second World War — during the early years of the state’s existence. There are several reasons for this: first, the offspring of these survivors — the ‘second generation’ — are now of an age at which they can take an active part in running the country; second, it would seem that the survivors themselves have reached a stage where they are ready to ‘open up’, to ‘tell’ about experiences which for years have been locked away in their hearts and memories — events they experienced not only during the war years, but also as immigrants to Israel in the late 1940s and early 1950s (incidentally the large influx of newcomers from the former USSR has placed the whole issue of immigrant integration very high on the county’s national agenda); and third, the publication of a series of research projects concerning the 1950s and Israel’s first decade as a state, and the current availability of relevant data, previously held in the country’s various archives.