מה ועד כמה לזכור מן השואה: זיכרון השואה במדינת ישראל בעשור הראשון לקיומה

Discusses public debates in Israel in the 1940s-50s concerning memory of the Holocaust. Although individuals had set up memorials already in the early 1940s, Mordechai Shenhavi's proposal for a national memorial in 1945 aroused debates among the populace, in the government, and in the press. In 1953 the Knesset passed a law to establish a national memorial, Yad Vashem, and to confirm the date of 27 Nissan as Yom Hashoah. There were debates concerning the date of Yom Hashoah before the Knesset confirmation, and again later concerning the nature of remembrance, until another law was passed in 1959 on the procedures for that day. The focus of the ceremonies and of the media in the 1950s was on why the Holocaust happened - on Nazi ideology and antisemitism, as well as on Jewish cooperation with the Nazis. Debates on cooperation vs. resistance, which began in the ghettos, continued in Israel in the 1950s, in part due to the Kasztner affair. Publications on the Holocaust in the late 1950s, and the Eichmann trial, helped Israelis understand the situation of the Jews under Nazi rule.