ABSTRACT
The project started in 1996 with a conference held in Maaleh Hachamisha, near Jerusalem, with support from the Israeli Ministry of health. Dr Moti Mark, the Commissioner of Mental Health, spoke at the conference and endorsed the project. The psychiatrist at the Israeli institution called to ask me whether the meeting was going to take place as planned. The survivors were the undeniable evidence, the ultimate proof, of the horrendous emotional devastation wrought by the Holocaust, which directly affected a large portion of Israeli society and, indirectly, Jews all over the world. Furthermore, to witness extreme traumatization, as is true for all Holocaust testimonies, is tantamount to reliving it. At its core, such reliving is ahistorical. But even the Holocaust, in spite of an enormous amount of study and research, remains to a large extent unknown.
