Philip Rubenstein
Abomination of Abominations: The Germany-Israel Reparations Controversy

Philip Rubenstein - Abomination of Abominations: Germany and Israel: The Reparations Controversy

- Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening to everyone. I have to say, I haven’t done one of these for a while, so I’ve been really looking forward to today and to speaking on this subject of the reparations controversy of the 1950s. And I thought to just get myself in the zone, I did a little mini tour around my mother’s house in Finchley, in London earlier today, and I couldn’t help noticing in the kitchen, there was a Bosch dishwasher and a Miele fridge. And in the shoe rack I found a pair of Adidas shoes. In the bathroom, there’s a pot of Nivea cream. And of course, on the drive, there’s a Volkswagen car. And all these products, as I’m sure you’ll all realise, have got one thing in common, which is they’re all goods that were designed, manufactured, and sold by German companies. I was brought up in the 1970s in a Jewish suburb of Manchester in the UK. And my parents and friends of my parents and my friend’s parents didn’t own a Jewish car… didn’t own a German car. And that was because at the time, as most of you will remember, there was a mutual understanding that you don’t buy German goods. I did have one friend whose dad owned a Ford and a BMW. And, I mean, now that I think about it, it was always interesting that it was the Ford that was on the drive and the BMW, which was the real love of his life that was kept in the garage. And I think that’s because as much as he prized it, he was extremely uncomfortable and a little embarrassed about the fact that he actually owned it. I first visited Israel in my early teens, so this would be, again, in the ‘70s. And what I saw on my arrival from the airport, leaving the airport was something that I hadn’t expected. I knew that Germany had paid reparations to Israel in kind, but what I hadn’t expected was to find the evidence so overwhelming and so omnipresent.

German made taxis on the streets, German made buses on all the routes, and German trains, a company called Mei that’s now defunct, on the Jerusalem to Tel Aviv route. And I mean, for me, this was an early experience in what psychologists call cognitive dissonance. I’m sure I didn’t call it cognitive dissonance at the time. I don’t think I knew what the phrase meant, but cognitive dissonance, as I’m sure many of you will know, it’s the mental discomfort that we experience when we hold two contrary or contradictory beliefs or attitudes at the same time. And this is because as human beings, we tend to like, and we tend to seek consistency in ideas and attitudes. So when there’s a conflict between two things, it creates inside of us an unpleasant feeling of unease and discomfort. And I definitely experienced this cognitive dissonance at the time, knowing that what was frowned upon at home, owning a German car was here almost universally in Israel. So today we’re looking at the vexed issue and the controversy around the German reparations agreements after the Shoah. And these were agreements that were made both with the State of Israel and with representatives of the individual survivors of the Shoah. The issue was hugely divisive at the time, hugely polarising, particularly in Israel, but also within the wider Jewish world. But again, you know, there’s this feeling of cognitive dissonance about this whole issue because it’s hard to see, I think, and you should make your own mind up and I’m sure everyone will reserve their own judgement .

But I find it’s hard to see either side is absolutely right or absolutely wrong. This is how the author Tom Segev describes one of the very many fierce debates in Israel about whether or not to negotiate with Germany over reparations. This is what he said. “It was the state versus conscience, utility versus morality, emotion versus rationality, revenge versus hope, the past versus the future.” And this debate was to produce a level of turmoil, anger, divisiveness, and even violence that the nascent State of Israel had never experienced in its few years of existence. I think it’s fair to say that relations between the new states of Israel and Germany were at the very least strained from the very start. The visceral horror of 6 million Jews murdered so recently made any idea of cultural or economic ties between the two states, just an idea that was impossible to imagine. There was a popular boycott that was imposed on the German people by Jews in Israel and worldwide. And this boycott reflected these feelings of hatred and a sense of revulsion among Jews, about Germany and all things German. You’ll see on this slide, this is an example of one of the earliest of of the Israeli passports. And if you look at the very top on the left, you’ll see in French and in Hebrew as well written, “Tewe les paye l'exception de l'allemogne” valid in any country except Germany. So when Israel’s government at the start of 1951, decides to seek reparation payments from the two German states, because remember we now have East and West Germany after World War II, Germany is split into the Federal Republic of Germany, the West, and the German Democratic Republic, GDR, which is the East, Israel wants to seek reparations from the German states, but they know they can’t approach the Germans directly. It’s simply too sensitive.

So with the aim of avoiding direct contact with the Germans, Jerusalem decided to submit its claim for reparation payments to the four occupying powers of Germany at the time, the US, the UK, France, and the USSR. The Soviets ignore the request, but the Western powers reply by letter and they explain that for political and legal reasons, as they say, they can’t interfere in this matter. And let me just translate what that means into English. The Cold War has now started in earnest, and the West is engaged in rebuilding West Germany as a bulwark against Soviet Russia. So in other words, this ain’t our problem because we’ve got bigger fish to fry. But unofficially, the Western powers suggest to Israel that they deal directly with West Germany, and left with no choice, Jerusalem accepts an offer by Conrad Adenauer, the first chancellor of the West German state, to open a secret channel of communication. Why West Germany only and and why not the GDR? Well, the communist government of the GDR was unwilling to accept or concede any state responsibility in this area. Remember their masters, the Soviets had lost more than 20 million people in the fight against the Nazi’s. And their main concern, the Soviet’s main concern, was to gain reparations to help it rebuild its own shattered economy. And to this end, it took material, equipment, and people from East Germany after the war. So there was no sense in any way that there was any interest in discussing reparations with anyone else. And of course, there was also a very deliberate downplaying of the specifically Jewish suffering that happened during the Shoah. And as a result, zero appetite to even discuss reparations, specifically, with Jewish victims. And so it was that secret contacts were established between Israel and West Germany over the spring and the summer of 1951.

And slowly and torturously over those months, an understanding, in principle, started to emerge about the need for West Germany to pay reparations. The central character, the dominant character from the West German side was Adenauer himself. Adenauer, a conservative, Federal Republic’s first chancellor, as I said earlier, during the war, Adenauer had by and large been treated by the Nazis as an opponent of the regime. He’d spent a brief time in prison in 1944, and without any doubt, whatever else we can say about him on this matter, and again, in a cognitive dissonance, complicated, as we’ll find out, he is the prime mover in establishing the responsibility of modern Germany and Nazi crimes and for the requirement of the German state, the West German state, to pay reparations. But, you know, let’s just pause for a moment having said that, because for Adenauer, the project, his life’s now is to rebuild West Germany. And this entails a regaining of full sovereignty and a positioning of Germany as a valued partner of the United States, and a fully paid up member of the international community. Adenauer’s mindful of the need to repair Germany’s appalling international standing. And he decides that a key plank of his project has to be to take on the mantle of remorse and responsibility of the Nazi past and make reparations towards Israel. Did he believe it in his heart or was he a pragmatist? I think a bit of both. He had long been interested in Jewish matters from the 1920s. He’s clearly then and later a supporter of the Jewish state, but it’s the pragmatist in him first and foremost that’s operating here. By the way, you know, talking about pragmatism, you know, as William touched on last week, if you happen to catch his lecture on the West German Miracle, you know, the Adenauer project involves putting together and keeping together a really shaky coalition of parties, officials, industrialists, of course, many of whom had been Nazis themselves or had sullied their hands by doing the Nazis bidding during the war.

And that coalition includes his own chief Chief of Staff, Hans Globke, an out and out notorious Nazi who’d served as the chief legal advisor to Adolf Eichmann. So now it’s September, 1951, and the secret contacts between Israel and West Germany have been ongoing for a number of months, and they’re starting to bear some fruit, and Adenauer thinks this is the time to go public. So he makes a speech to the Bundetag, Germany’s parliament, where he’s going to acknowledge responsibility, and he’s going to announce that Germany wishes to make reparations. Let’s look at what he actually says. I’m going to read this because it’s an extraordinary speech for what it does and doesn’t say. “The Federal Government and with the great majority of the Germany nation is aware of the immeasurable suffering brought upon the Jews in Germany and the occupied territories during the period of national socialism.” So, so far, so good. “The overwhelming majority of the German nation detested the crimes, perpetrated against the Jews and had no part in them. There were many among the German people who during the period of National Socialism for religious reasons and compelled by conscience out of shame for the desecration of the name of Germany, endangered themselves by being helpful to their Jewish fellow citizens.” So I mean, we’re now in the land of total fiction, but he’s playing to a German audience here as well as to an international audience. “Unspeakable crimes, however, were committed in the name of the German nation, and they render a moral and material reparations obligatory, both as far as the individual damage suffered by the Jews concerned and as regards Jewish property for which individual claimants may no longer be alive. In this matter, the first steps have been taken, but very much remains to be done.”

Well then he says, “The Federal Government will see to it that reparations legislation is speedily passed and is justly carried out. Part of the identifiable Jewish property has been restored. More restitution will follow. And with regard to the amount of reparation, a very significant problem in view of the enormous destruction of Jewish possessions, the limits must be taken into account, which are set to German capacity by the bitter necessity of having to care for the enumerable victims of the war and having to maintain the refugees and expellees.” So he’s saying we’d like to give lots of reparations, but we are going to be limited because we’ve got our own returnees to take into account, and they’re going to need to be financed. And we’ll come back to that in a few minutes. He finishes here, “The Federal Government has prepared jointly with the representatives of Jewry and the State of Israel, which has accepted so many homeless Jewish refugees, to bring about a solution of the problems of material reparation, in order in this manner to ease the way towards a spiritual pacification.” That’s what he wants, a spiritual pacification. It doesn’t say exoneration, but that’s the long-term agenda, that’s what he’s referring to. So an important speech, but a highly problematic speech. And you can imagine when he talks about the overwhelming majority of the German nation detesting the crimes, how hollow this would’ve sounded to any survivor who had heard or read the speech. But yet, you know, as I say, here he is at the podium and he’s the first German statesman to express support for the new State of Israel, the first to admit a level of responsibility, a level for Nazi crimes, and the first to express the desire, not popular in Germany, to make some form of financial amends.

So talk about contradictions, right? So the reaction in Israel, remember until now, these negotiations have been held in secret. But Adenauer’s speech puts the whole issue in the public domain, and it proves to be a kind of a starting pistol for a controversy that’s going to rage in Israel for, you know, at least the next couple of years, a level of turmoil that Israeli society, young as it is, has never seen the like of. And very quickly we start to see people divide into one of two opposing camps. And we don’t quite know the numbers, but it’s, you know, it’s around half and half. There’s the yes camp broadly in favour of negotiation. And then there’s the no camp, which is appalled by the very idea that you would sit in the same room and at the same table as a group of German officials. The words of Deuteronomy in the Bible are invoked constantly in this period by the no camp, “Remember what Amalek did to you?” The yes camp is led by Mapai. Now, the second Knesset has just been elected, and as you can see from this table, Mapai, which is Ben Gurion’s party, has emerged not with an overall majority, but has emerged as the largest party by far in the Knesset. It’s the dominant party in the Knesset as a result, and it’s dominated by the figure of David Ben Gurion. Here’s Ben Gurion and Ben Gurion, you know, not unlike Adenauer is the ultimate pragmatist, and as far as he sees it, he’s trying to run a new country whose economy is about to fall off a cliff. There’s been a massive population growth in just three years in the new state. From 1948 to 1951, the population of the State of Israel doubles from 800,000 to 1.6 million. Many of these new arrivals are Shoah survivors themselves, and most of the new arrivals arrive without money, without clothing.

So, you know, guess what? You know, this new country is struggling to absorb everyone. This is the early 1950s, so remember, you know, this is a time when Israel has no economic or financial patrons. So Ben Gurion’s argument is essentially this, “We’re all alone, we’ve got no money. I know it’s not comfortable to sit down with Germany, I don’t want to do it. I’d rather not do it. But we have no choice. And before we can even think about how we’re going to grow and prosper in this new state of ours, we have to survive.” The no camp is led by the leader of the Herut Party, Menachem Begin. The no camp, as I say, overall in know, represents not far off half the country who find the very concept, the idea negotiating with Germany to be repugnant, abhorrent. Over one weekend early in this controversy, a group of former ghetto fighters led by none other than Abba Kovner, chained themselves to railings outside the Knesset, and they discussed going on hunger strike, but they decide not to because they know what it means to suffer from hunger. Now, you know, it must be said that not everyone is fighting on principle in this battle. And some of the political parties are motivated, at least in part by raw political calculation. This is probably the case for some of the ultra-Orthodox parties, and it’s certainly the case for the leftist and communist parties, but for Herut and particularly for its leader, Menachem Begin, their opposition was ground in deeply, deeply held moral convictions. Begin’s father was one of 5,000 Jews in his hometown, who were rounded up by the Nazis at the end of June 1941, after operation Barbarossa was launched and they were drowned in the local river.

Begin’s mother and his elder brother, Herzl, were also murdered in the Shoah, so this is very personal. It is now, and it will remain so for the rest of his life. The idea of talking to the Germans of dealing with the Germans, of taking their money. In the Knessett, he shouted out during someone’s speech, he called it an abomination of abominations, hence the title of this lecture. He saw it as a deep humiliation for the victims of the Holocaust. Matters came to a head on the 7th of January, 1952. This was the day that the rage boiled over, which is slightly ironic because it was also a cold and rainy day. It was the day that the agreement was due to be debated in the Knessett, in Israel’s parliament. And here you can see Menachem Begin, and he’s in front of a mass demonstration in Zion Square, Zion Square in downtown Jerusalem. And there are an estimated 15,000 people gathered here, and here’s Begin in front of them. And you know, he’s the master rhetorician, and he chooses his language very carefully. This is another view of the demonstration. Here’s Begin at a balcony overlooking the crowd. And you can see there’s a sign there, and you can see below the translation of that sign, which… sorry, I’ve got something blocking it so I can’t read it. But it says, “Our blood shall not be atoned by goods, we shall wipe out the disgrace.” So he starts his speech, he says, “Tonight, the most shameful event in our people’s history is slated to occur.” He’s talking about the Knesset debate. He starts to talk about what he describes as the German butchers who drowned his father in the local river. He says, “There’s no German who didn’t murder our fathers. Every German is a Nazi, every German is a murderer. He denounces Ben Gurion "as the little despot and big maniac.”

I mean, you know, that’s classic Begin. He denounces him as well as his supporters because that’s the way they think, he says. Money, money, money. In some way through his speech, someone hands Begin a folded note, and he opens the note, he reads it, then he points to the police officers who are on the perimeter, who are all policing the demonstration. And he shouts, “Look, they’re all carrying tear gas and it’s made in Germany.” “The same gas,” he says, “that choked our fathers.” Bear in mind, Begin didn’t know this, but many of those police officers were Shoah survivors themselves. So you can’t imagine how they must have felt when they heard that. Begin then calls for mass action, and the crowd when he finishes, start to march off towards the Knesset building. And it’s at this point that the scene gets ugly and things turn violent. They get to the Knesset and stones are thrown, glass is shattered, some members of the Knesset are injured, and around 100 police are injured too. So, you know, I mean, definitely shades of the Capitol riots from a couple of years ago here. Begin himself eventually arrives at the Knesset, and it’s during the debate. And he walks in and he makes one of the greatest speeches of his life. I mean, you can see this online. You can just do a Google search, I mean, read it, it’s a devastating masterpiece. In the speech, he deliberately addresses Ben Gurion directly and he says, “You are ready for a few millions of contaminated dollars and for impure goods to deprive us of dignity, the dignity that we have. Today you arrested a few hundred and you may arrest thousands, it is fine. They will be jailed and we shall sit with them.

If it’s necessary, we will die with them and there will be no reparations from Germany.” And then he closes off the speech with a final appeal. He looks at Ben Gurion and he says, “Mr. Ben Gurion, I appeal to you not as a political nemesis, as there is a deep chasm between us with no bridge. And there will be no bridge because our chasm is a bloody one. I appeal to you in this last moment as one Jew to another, a son of an orphan, people as a son of a bereaved nation, stop it, don’t do such a thing. It is an utmost abomination. Nothing like it have we ever experienced since we became a people. I am trying to provide you with a way out. As an opponent, I would not have done so, but as a Jew, I will.” Well, after three days of deliberation, the Knesset finally votes on the motion to negotiate with Germany, 61 vote in favour, 50 vote against, and 9 members abstain. Sadly, the attack on the Knesset was only one of a series of violent actions aimed at halting any form of negotiation and any form of conciliation with Germany, and the violence didn’t stop there. Shortly afterwards a Shoah survivor placed a bomb next to the foreign ministry in Tel Aviv. And one of many incidents, a few months later in 1953, the great violinist, Jascha Heifetz, played a concert in Jerusalem. And the programme included a sonata by Richard Straus. Well, after the concert, Heifetz goes back to his hotel room and there’s a stranger waiting for him who’s armed with an iron bar, and he strikes Heifetz on the hand, and then he flees. The next day, Ben Gurion comes to see Heifetz, and he provides him with bodyguards. He advises him to continue the tour and to keep the Strauss peace in the programme. So let’s return now to the negotiations themselves, and then we’ll also look at the claims process and what happens after the negotiations.

So who are the parties who were sitting around the table? Well, there was the State of Israel, and there were representatives from West Germany, the Federal Republic. But there was also a representation for all individual Jews who had suffered under the Nazis. And the man who engineered this reputation was one of the great American Jewish leaders. As he became Nahum Goldmann, who’s pictured here, Goldmann’s family had been Eretz students, so they’d lived in the Pale of Settlement and they’d fled and they’d ended up in Frankfort. The young Nahum is exposed throughout his childhood because his father’s influential. He’s exposed to Jewish intellectuals and Zionist intellectuals who are constantly visiting the family home. The family have to leave Germany in 1935 after they’re stripped of their citizenship. And Goldmann ends up in the USA and he now devotes himself to Jewish leadership, the cause of Jewish leadership. In 1936, along with Rabbi Steven Wise, he co-founders the World Jewish Congress. From that platform, he warns America and American Jews about Hitler and the Nazis. So it’s now 1951, and Goldmann, having heard Adenauer convenes a meeting in New York of some 20 or so Jewish organisations to address the task of negotiating an agreement with the West German government for reparations specifically to individual Jews for losses caused by Nazi Germany. And the organisation that emerges from that meeting is the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which over time has become known and shortened to as the Claims Conference. So the negotiations take place in Wassenaar, in this place, Wassenaar Castle, it’s a secluded villa. It’s a suburb just outside The Hague.

So it’s on neutral territory, and it’s a three-way negotiation. So we have Germany, we have Israel, and we have the Claims Conference around the table, and this is where they meet. And by all accounts, the negotiations, especially at the start, were, you know, not surprisingly, very tense, very difficult. After a while, the negotiators start to get to know each other and they settle into a rhythm and a mutual understanding starts to emerge. One of those around the table representing the Claims Conference is Benjamin Ferencz, Ben Ferencz. Here he is. Ben Ferencz, who, by the way, he died earlier this year, very recently, I think only last month. He was 103. Extraordinary man. Ben Ferencz, he’d been a young prosecutor on the American team at Nuremberg. And then he was made the chief prosecutor at the subsequent trial of Einsatzgruppen members in 1947. And here he is at the Einsatzgruppen trial. And you can see him and, you know, here he is, the tender age of 27. He’s the chief prosecutor of the trial. Extraordinary. It was not an easy decision for Ben Ferencz to do this, and to sit at this table. And he recalls friends and family saying to him, “You’re going to sit down with German Nazi bastards who killed our whole family. You’re going to talk to them about compensation.” But he decides he has to go, and then he throws himself into the negotiations. After six months of tough, tough negotiation, two agreements are signed in Luxembourg by Adenauer and Moshe Sharrett, who’s then Prime Minister of Israel on behalf of Israel, and for the State of Israel and Adenauer and Nahum Goldmann for the Claims Conference as a representation of individual Jews who’d suffered in Shoah. West Germany, in these agreements, pledges to pay Israel the equivalent of $750 million in goods and services.

And the Claims Conference is going to receive the equivalent of an initial sum of $107 million for reparations to victims. It was reported by one of the attendees at the signing ceremony that everyone was very proper. There were polite smiles, but there were no handshakes and no speeches. It actually took several months for the agreement to be ratified. It was only ratified in March, 1953. And the reason for the delay is because the Arab League tried and threatened to prevent ratification, but their efforts failed. Many Germans were deeply, deeply unhappy with these negotiations and with the idea of reparations. A public poll was taken at the time, and somewhere in the region of only 11% of the German people expressed any support for the idea of reparations to the victims. Germany, of course, was going through a period of rapid upward mobility thanks to the American Marshall Plan, which had massively boosted the economy, but most Germans felt as they had suffered from the war, they should keep the money for themselves. Why should they hand over to anyone else? This is Fritz Schaffer, West Germany’s Finance Minister. He was a vocal opponent of reparations. “We have our own financial problems,” he said, “This is going to bankrupt Germany.” And of course, there were many former Nazis who were back in positions of power, and they were appalled by the idea of payments to Jews. But in spite of them, the agreement was signed and it was ratified.

One of the issues was terminology. Terminology was really important because the German version of the agreement uses this term here, I hope I’d get the pronunciation not too botched, Wiedergutmaching. Wiedergutmaching means making good, or, a return to a former state. The Hebrew version of the agreement, on the other hand, uses the term Shilumim, which is a much more neutral term. It denotes a payment, payments of money, and in this case, a loss of property, but certainly not a making good. Many survivors bitterly object to the German term. They felt it implied an expiration or removal of guilt. One survivor of Auschwitz said, “I never liked that term because I felt nothing could ever make good for the suffering we had endured.” Germany, for its part, having signed and ratified the agreement, did honour its payments, and always paid what it had agreed to pay. But, you know, let’s not kid ourselves for individual claimants, the process wasn’t easy. You didn’t get money from the Claims Conference. The Claims Conference wasn’t giving up money. There was a process and you had to jump through hoops. Every claim had to go to court, every claim had to be proved. And in every case, the individual claimant had to prove that they were injured as a result of direct consequences of Nazi action. And there were literally millions of claims filed, and 3 or 4 million claims were filed, Jews and non-Jews alike. And in order to get your claim recognised, you had to go through a German doctor and they had to be persuaded that your injury or disability was caused by persecution. Often the German doctors were hostile, particularly those who were former Nazis. So here’s Ben Ferencz, who’s talking in 1984, and he’s talking about the process, and then he goes on to talk about how the so-called late claims were treated. So let’s just play this clip here.

CLIP PLAYS

• And later the claims had to be submitted to a German agent and if you are not satisfied with that, you had, again, go through the Germans judicial system up to the German Supreme Court and a German constitutional court and the United Restitution Organisation, which was another organisation that I was involved when it was set up. And I was the director of that. We took many cases to the German Supreme Court and had to take it to constitutional court to assert our rights. Sometimes we won, sometimes we didn’t.

• Were there any particular stories involved in these claims that you might want to talk about?

• Well, I think the fundamental story which disturbed me for many years was the German failure to recognise, well, the late claims, these ailments, which would appear only years later, several years later, particularly mental ailments. But it’s not only mental, people would suddenly get heart trouble, get other things, and the Germans refused to recognise that, although medical science was beginning to recognise that people who had been subjected to trauma might have this late syndrome, which I may be a victim of myself of, but they began to recognise it when the German troops began coming home from the Soviet Union. Suddenly they realised that these soldiers who had been subjected to the most difficult circumstances while in Soviet captivity were suffering from mental ailments of various kinds and other physical ailments, and they began to compensate them. Incidentally, the payments made to German SS officers, their pension payments were vastly higher than any amounts given to Jewish survivors. Although they were important to the Jewish survivors, we don’t want to exaggerate their importance in relationship to Germany’s overall budget and how much they spent on their own, their widows of their own fallen SS heroes as they considered them, and SS officers. So this whole category of mental ailments was badly treated by the Germans, very badly treated for very many years. And many people died before they could get any compensation and had to be reversed by the courts. And some court decisions were outrageously unfair to the claimants.

• I mean, you know, this treatment of the late claims that Ben Ferencz describes, you know, I mean, it typifies the whole German approach toward reparations, which, you know, I would characterise as yes, but. Yes, Adenauer declared reparations must be paid and Germany had a responsibility to pay them, but he didn’t acknowledge any guilt by the German people for the crimes. Yes, there was a process, but so many of the doctors, the lawyers, the courts, the administrators were themselves profoundly unsympathetic, and many of them were former Nazis themselves. Yes, there was a level of compensation for the victims, but returning SS men, for example, as well as others, received far more generous financial treatment than the victims ever did. And yes, many types of victims, many categories of victims were acknowledged and compensated, but many weren’t. One example of a group who were ignored and maltreated was the Roma and Sinti, so-called gipsies. The estimate is that somewhere between 200,000 and 500,000 Roma and Sinti were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. Many more were imprisoned and used as forced labour or sterilised or made to take part in brutal medical experimentation. And in post-war Germany, there was a continuation of the prejudice against these groups, with many of the officials involved in looking at their cases, being the very same people who had dealt with the Roma and Sinti during the Third Reich. And you know, no surprise, the claims for compensation were almost always rejected and often based on the falsehood that was perpetuated, that all Roma and Sinti were fundamentally lawless and had therefore been imprisoned during World War II for good reason. And it was really only in the late 1980s and 1990s that attitudes towards the Roma and Sinti started to change. Most brazen in their denial, I have to say, were the German industrialists.

Their attitudes towards claims for their use of slave labour during the Nazi years. Thirteen and a half million women, men, and children all over Europe were used as slave labourers for the German Reich, of which almost 3 million died or were murdered. I mean, you know, look at this, this is an interesting wartime poster, isn’t it? An armoured car built by, well, you can see who. You know, under the glorious protection of the Luftwaffe. So German industrialists, when they were confronted, first of all, they denied that slave labour ever happened. Then when it was obvious it did, they then denied that they were in any way responsible or connected with it. “Maybe these people were assigned to us by the SS without us ever knowing this.” And when that was proved to be hokum, then they said, “Well, actually, I mean, the conditions were quite good.” I mean, the conditions were appalling in every case. And finally, when their backs were against the wall and when there was no other defence, they said, “Well, you know, you should be grateful because if it wasn’t for us, these people would’ve gone to the gas chamber.” A very small number of German companies responded with speed, but the vast majority didn’t. Certainly, you know, most of the giants of German industry, you know, the VWs and the Siemens of this world. And they only changed their tune in the 1990s. And why? Well, this was when they started to operate in truly global markets. And now suddenly for the first time, they really have to protect and nurture their international image. And when they eventually were forced to make payments, the sums were paltry. So this has been a talk of two halves. This has been a story about Germany’s efforts to make reparations, and it’s also been a story about Israel’s response towards those overtures. Of the German effort to make reparations, I mean, I described them a few moments ago as yes, but. You know, it stemmed in part from a wish to rehabilitate themselves as a nation by doing right by their victims.

Slowly at first, but over the past couple of decades it must be said, much more heartfelt, probably from the 1990s, much more heartfelt from then on. In the end, Germany didn’t stint on the financial cost. In the 1951 negotiations, the initial figure under discussion was somewhere in the region of 6 billion Marks in settlement of individual claims. In fact, the cost of Germany has been more like 100 billion Marks since then. And that equates in today’s money to around $80 billion. In a wider sense, the reparations agreement has become the template for future reparations agreements. Until 1951, reparations were usually negotiated between the victims and the vanquished, the victims and the defeated in the aftermath of war. But this time, for the first time, it was between representatives of the perpetrators and their victims. So here’s Ben Ferencz again talking in 1994. This is 40 years after the agreements were struck. And he’s reflecting on what he considers to be the importance of the agreements.

• Significant. And as I look back upon it in retrospect, the programme is still going on, but it should be over within the next 10, 20 years as the last victims die off. As I look back upon it, it was a unique historical achievement and it was a great achievement. It was a great achievement from a moral point of view. The awareness and recognition that the wrongdoer has an obligation to his victim to try to help him. From a legal point of view, developing the principles of compensation, the principles of law, which should bind people under similar circumstances, which I hope are never repeated, but which I fear are being repeated. So as I look back upon it, I think it was a very great thing that was done in the name of all of the Jewish organisations, on behalf of the Nazi survivors. It was inadequate to make good again any of their suffering, but at least it was a gesture that somebody cared and they had not been forgotten.

• Somebody cared and they haven’t been forgotten. So finally, let’s return to Israel because the Israel part of this story was a story of division and polarisation. And it’s not unreminiscent of what we’ve seen in Israel in recent months, weeks, days. I began today with a quote from Tom Segev. He described the controversy as the state versus conscience, utility versus morality, emotion versus rationality, revenge versus hope, and the past versus the future. And you know, as has been clear, I think, these conflicting beliefs were embodied by David Ben Gurion in the one camp and Menachem Begin in the other. Ben Gurion, the ultimate pragmatist, convinced that the economic survival of the country was at stake and this was a deal that had to be done. Israel’s finance minister at the time, Eliezer Kaplan, and told the cabinet in early 1951, “We have fuel for one month.” There was no time to lose. Begin’s view, on the other hand, was principles first. He believed that a nation that doesn’t honour its history has no future, and that this decision would fatally undermine the moral conscience and the moral existence of the new state. Who was right, who was wrong? Who can say? You know, it’s like arguing whether the body or the soul is more important. And I think, certainly in the case of Israel, I think the answer has to be both. They’re both important because a body without a soul is just an empty shell. But a soul without a body is a restless, unloved, unprotected thing forever in search of a home. Thank you. Okay, so I think we may have some questions and comments.

QA& and Comments:

Let’s see what everyone’s saying, and we have.

Arlene. On my first visit to Israel, I was very upset to see my cousins driving a VW. My father served in World War II in the Pacific. When I bought a Mazda, he didn’t speak to me for three years. Yeah, and that’s interesting, isn’t it? I think many of us had very similar experience.

This is Sheila, Sheila Chiat. I hope I pronounced that correctly, Sheila. In the late 1950s at primary school in Cape Town as an eight year old, I wanted Barbara Castle pencil crayons as they were the only ones by using paint and water that could be used to paint in maps. My parents refused, I could have Lakeland pencils, but I could save up my pocket money. It took eight months. Okay, Sheila, thank you.

Michael Block. Michael says, I’m 82 years old. I lived in Israel my whole life. The only time I’ve ever bought German or Austrian goods is if I had needed it and could not find it from any other country, including medicine.

Brenda, Brenda Yablon, I was a student at Hebrew U in Jerusalem in 1965 when a German embassy was going to be established in Jerusalem. Yes. So that’s right. So there were various diplomatic contacts from '52 to '65, but '65 was the year that diplomatic relations were established. So Brenda says there were large emotional demonstrations of people carrying placards that read in Hebrew, “We won’t forgive and we won’t forget.” I spent the summer on the Kibbutz in the Jezreel Valley that was unbearably hot in humid. Those Kibbutz members who had received general reparations turned them over to the Kibbutz, which used the funds to build a life enhancing pool. I mean, you know, this is an interesting point because the survivor community was mixed and was quite divided about whether or not to accept reparations. And many who did were not at all comfortable about the idea.

This is Michael again. To me, seeing a German vehicle or German good still feels like a knife in the heart. Okay.

Whoops, I’ve just lost some of these. Some more comments about buying German or Austrian products.

Q: Is compensation only paid to Jewry survivors says Elaine or asks Elaine Swagg? What about the Roma, et cetera, who are persecuted and killed because they weren’t white or blonde?

A: As far as I know, very little has been paid to the Sinti community. There were many non-Jewish groups who did receive some form of communication, but through the Claims Conference. The Jewish community was extremely well organised and many other communities didn’t have the same level of organisation. And I’ll give you an example, and this is something that Ben Ferencz was involved in. It was brought to his attention that there were Catholic girls, mainly Polish and Czech girls who were at Ravensbruck Camp, and the Nazis committed atrocious medical experiments on them. They’d break open their skin and put glass and stones in the skin and they’re experimenting on them to see what German troops in the field could withstand. And the Germans refused point blank to give them any form of compensation. And the reason that was given, is because Germany had no diplomatic relations with communist countries, with Czechoslovakia or Poland or Romania, and Ferencz and others had to fight very hard, and in the end they took the Catholic women, they brought them to the US, they brought them to St. Patrick’s Cathedral to see Cardinal Spelman. TV cameras were there. They brought them to the Senate, and of course, any senator who had any Polish or Czech constituents made a speech and eventually the German government were just simply embarrassed into paying some form of compensation.

Amit, thank you. Amit talks about Reckoning, which is a film that was made very recently, I think, about a year ago. Amit says, an excellent film although I understand the reasons for opposition to negotiating with the Germans and accepting reparations, my sisters and I are deeply grateful that my father, a Holocaust survivor, who fled Romania before the pogrom has benefited from the caregiving services through the Claims Conference. All this, after my father’s lifetime of staunchly resisting all things German. In retrospect, do you believe it was a correct decision? Well, I don’t think I’m going to put a view. I mean, I think this is an incredibly complicated issue and everyone will have their own view. I haven’t seen the movie Reckoning. I’ve heard it’s extremely good and I do want to watch it and I hope others will and will let us know what they think of it.

Comments here, Pauline, Pauline Mankowski. The Claims Conference in New York treated the survivors who made the claims with contempt, disregard, and lack of respect. My parents were survivors of the Nazi camps. They made their claim and then they were told not to bother anyone with questions. After waiting for years, they requested how their cases were going. They were told to leave everyone at the Claims Conference alone as they were an annoyance. It was really horrible. Most of the case workers were Jewish American social workers. There was some dark days at the Claims Conference. The history of the Claims Conference is not an even one. And there were, particularly in the latter years, there were many controversies around the Claims Conference. Not in the early years. But Pauline, I think your parents’ experience, it just sounds absolutely appalling and they should never had to undergo such treatment. Thank you. Thank you for sharing with us.

Selena says thank you for this interesting class. I also grew up in a suburb of Manchester. My dad loved to drive his BMW or Mercedes. I did know several people whose parents refused to purchase or drive German goods or cars. Okay, so I think there are a few more questions, but I think we’ll leave it there ‘cause time is getting on and there are quite a few comments there. Thank you everyone very much. A difficult issue and people have got strong opinions. They have strong opinions and it’s clear everyone still has strong opinions on the issue. I wish I had a simple answer. I don’t, but you know, it’s not a simple issue.

So thank you everyone and have a good evening. Bye-bye.