Poll: 40 percent of Israelis think second Holocaust possible

Between 36 and 40 percent of Israelis believe that the Holocaust could happen again, according to two polls released just before Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is commemorated from Wednesday night to Thursday night in Israel.

Seventeen percent of respondents said the chance of a second Holocaust was very high, according to a poll conducted at Tel Hai Academic College. Twenty-eight percent of those polled said they thought their own life was in great danger, and 43 percent thought that Israel was in danger of destruction.

Just under two-thirds of those questioned in a Dahaf Institute poll, conducted by pollster Mina Tzemach, believe that Israel’s nuclear weapons will protect against a second Holocaust. The overwhelming majority of Israelis, 74%, also believe that Iran currently possesses nuclear weapons that present an existential threat to Israel’s existence.

The Tel Hai poll, conducted by Professor Shaul Kimhi, compared data from a group of 435 adult respondents and a group of 130 12th-grade students who had visited Holocaust sites in Poland.

Kimhi told Haaretz that the findings of his poll showed that the Holocaust still had a significant effect on the population, even among young Israelis. The fact that nearly 40 percent of Israelis polled believe that a second Holocaust could occur “is an indication of Holocaust fears instilled in us from childhood, which are not necessarily rational, but they’re part of Jewish-Israeli culture,” he said.