50 Holocaust survivors have served in Knesset

Fifty of the 935 lawmakers who have served in the Knesset since Israel’s founding were Holocaust survivors, the Knesset said.

The Israeli parliament was established in 1949. Precisely 5.33% of the parliamentarians — four women and 46 men — were born in Europe before or during World War II and fled to Israel during the war or after, according to Knesset archives released for Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Nine of the 120 lawmakers in the first Knesset went through the Holocaust. However, there have been no survivors in parliament since the 17th Knesset, when Ehud Olmert was prime minister, which dissolved in 2009.

Five survivors served as ministers and and three were Knesset speaker.

Among those was Yosef (Tommy) Lapid, who was deported by the Nazis to the Budapest Ghetto. Yosef and his mother were saved by Raoul Wallenberg but his father, Yair’s grandfather, was murdered in a concentration camp.

His son Yair Lapid is head of the Yesh Atid Party and served as Finance Minister. He has railed against Israelis moving to Europe, citing his father’s experience.

At 11 a.m. on Monday the Knesset marked Holocaust Remembrance Day with a ceremony titled “Unto Every Person There is a Name,” in which lawmakers recite names of victims of the Nazis for nearly two hours.

Earlier, at the country’s central commemoration event at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum in Jerusalem, dignitaries laid wreaths next to a monument commemorating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943.

Among those taking part in the wreath-laying were President Reuven Rivlin, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein.

The theme of this year’s commemoration is “Restoring Their Identities: The Fate of the Individual During the Holocaust,” Yad Vashem said ahead of Remembrance Day.

There is no single clear definition of who is considered a Holocaust survivor.