ASHKELON, Israel (AP) — Gad Partok was 10 years old in 1942 when Nazis stormed his street in the Tunisian coastal town of Nabeul. He saw them go door to door, dragging out his neighbors, shooting them, and burning down their houses.
Like so many Jews who moved to Israel after the war, Partok believed that Israel would finally be a place where he would be free from persecution.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has shown us again and again over the decades that security is not absolute and that security has its price. But October 7, 2023 – the day Hamas carried out the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust – shook his faith in Israel as a place of refuge.
The 93-year-old watched from his living room as television news broadcast videos of Hamas fighters marching through communities just a few kilometers from his home in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. As rockets were fired from Gaza overhead, Partok saw footage of the militants killing, looting and rounding up hostages.
“I thought – what, is this the same time as these Nazis? That can’t be right,” Partok said, clenching his fists as he spoke.
Saturday is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which commemorates the murder of 6 million Jews and many other groups by the Nazis and their collaborators. In Israel – a country home to about half of the world's Holocaust survivors – the day has special significance because of the recent trauma of October 7th.
Gad Partok, 93, a Tunisian-born Holocaust survivor, prepares coffee at his home in Ashkelon, southern Israel, on Friday, January 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
Hamas militants stormed past Israel's vaunted security installations that day, killing about 1,200 people and dragging about 250 hostages into Gaza. For many, this rampage brought back memories of the horrors of the Nazis.
Partok was shocked by the militants' brazen trail through the agricultural cooperatives and small towns of his adopted homeland. As he watched the attack, he wondered where the country's defenses were.
“Where is the army? Where is the government? Our people?” he recalled. The feeling of abandonment brought back disturbing memories of his youth.
Pictures (left) of the parents of Gad Partok, 93, a Tunisian-born Holocaust survivor, are seen pictured right at his home in Ashkelon, southern Israel, Friday, January 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
“Dragging the people of Be'eri, Nir Oz, Kfar Aza, Kissufim, Holit, it's the same. It reminded me of the same thing,” he said, listing the names of the affected communities. “I felt very, very bad. I even felt a feeling of disgust, of fear, of terrible memories that was difficult to explain.”
The plight of Tunisia's small Jewish community is a lesser-known chapter of the Holocaust.
According to Israel's Yad Vashem museum, during the six-month occupation, the Nazis sent nearly 5,000 Tunisian Jews to labor camps, where dozens died from work, disease and Allied bombing. Allied forces liberated Tunisia in 1943, but it was too late to save many of Partok's neighbors.
Partok said his family was only able to escape because his father, a fabric merchant who spoke Arabic, hid the family's Jewish identity. The family left Tunisia and moved to Israel in 1947, a year before the country's independence.
As an adult, he taught photography and owned a photography shop in Ashkelon. His home is full of yellowed photos; Pictures of his late wife and parents adorn the walls. He has grandchildren and great-grandchildren who live throughout Israel.
Partok's home is less than 24 kilometers (15 miles) from the Gaza border, and so he lives with the sounds of war around him – Israel's relentless bombing of Gaza as well as Hamas rockets fired into Israel.
Israel's war against Hamas has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in Gaza. It has led to international criticism, widespread calls for a ceasefire and even charges of genocide by South Africa at the International Court of Justice.
Despite the level of death and destruction in Gaza, many Israelis remain focused on October 7th.
News channels rarely broadcast footage of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, instead alternating between stories of tragedy and heroism on October 7 and the plight of more than 100 hostages still held by Hamas.
In Ashkelon, warning sirens regularly sound when rockets are fired at Israel. Partok leaves the TV on and listens to news about the war. Stories keep cropping up – a hostage left for dead, a child without parents, a survivor's story retold.
“I'm sitting here in my chair and I'm looking and my eyes are staring and I can't believe it,” he said. “Is it true? Is it so?”