The Holocaust and the October 7 massacre were not the same, nor was one a continuation of each other, Yad Vashem chairman Dani Dayan said in an interview with Zvika Klein on The Jerusalem Post Podcast. 

"The similarities exist. The cruelty, the sadism. The intention was genocidal, but the differences are huge," Dayan explained just before Holocaust Remembrance Day. 

"And the main difference that makes October 7  completely separate, not [Holocaust] 2.0, is that we are not anymore at the mercy of others."

The Yad Vashem chair went on to describe how more empowered the Jewish people are today than they were in the 1930s and 1940s.

"During the Shoah [the Hebrew name for the Holocaust], the maximum we could do was to beg [US president Franklin Delano] Roosevelt and [UK prime minister Winston] Churchill to bomb the railways," Dayan said. 

A member of an Israeli emergency standby squad receives an M-16 rifle from the IDF's Southern Command, December 7, 2023 Israeli emegerncy standby squad receives an M-16 rifle from the IDF's Southern Command, December 7, 2023 (credit: DEFENSE MINISTRY)
A member of an Israeli emergency standby squad receives an M-16 rifle from the IDF's Southern Command, December 7, 2023 Israeli emegerncy standby squad receives an M-16 rifle from the IDF's Southern Command, December 7, 2023 (credit: DEFENSE MINISTRY)
On October 7, many residents of the communities in the South, including members of emergency standby squads, fought and risked their lives - in many cases dying in battle - to fend off the terrorists and save the lives of the local residents. 

Comparing it to notable figures in the Holocaust who fought the Nazis in ghettos, Dayan noted that they were both acts of heroism just the same, but the purposes were completely different.

"They fought in order to die with dignity," he said. "These guys [the emergency standby squad members and first responders on October 7] fought in order to save lives. That's completely different."

'It's what Hamas wants': Yad Vashem chairman explains why comparing Holocaust to October 7 is dangerous

However, Dayan further criticized comparing October 7 and the Holocaust as dangerous. 

"What is terror? Terror is the desire to terrorize the population of your adversary, of your enemy," he said. "By admitting that we are, again, in the hallways [that lead to] the gas chambers, we play into the hands of Hamas. That's what Hamas wants. So I think that objectively, and even from a tactical point of view, it's a huge mistake to make that comparison."