Holocaust victims are discharged into the community

Nearly 50years after they were first placed in Israeli mental hospitals for psychotic behaviour, hundreds of Jewish survivors of the holocaust will be moved to hostels, homes for the elderly, and other sheltered institutions in the community.

The health ministry is finally implementing a plan for the gradual transfer of many of these patients, who became mentally ill after surviving the cruelties of the Nazi regime during the second world war.

Half of the 800surviving patients were admitted to hospital soon after their arrival from Europe during the …