On Sept. 10, 1952, 60
years ago, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and Israeli Foreign
Minister Moshe Sharet signed the Reparations Agreement in Luxembourg.
The State of Israel, as the representative of the Jewish people,
received three million West German marks (East Germany refused to pay
its part), then about $1.5 billion and the equivalent of about $13
billion today, for the horrors inflicted upon those who survived the
Holocaust. The reparations were granted to the state as the
representative of the Holocaust victims and the executor of helping in
survivors' recovery.
Thus ended one of the
most difficult processes yet endured by the young Israeli democracy,
which had briefly questioned it's ability to absorb Holocaust survivors.
It was a heart wrenching controversy.
The idea that postwar
Germany should pay reparations to Jews, victims of the Nazis, arose
while World War II was still happening. World Zionist Organization
President Chaim Weizmann filed the claim for reparations to the Allies
in 1945. Weizmann claimed, of course, that he was requesting for a
people, not a country, but sought to start a dialogue about the
possibility.
Following the founding
of the state, when the request was again made to the Allies still
controlling Germany, the answer was of course negative. The Allies said
they could not add compensation to Germany's already heavy financial
burden.
Even following the
declaration of West and East Germany as independent and separate states,
Israel had no intention to negotiate directly with either of them. The
boycott against Germany was all-encompassing. On our parents' passports
it was written that they could travel to "all countries except Germany."
The idea of
compensation and reparations from Germany dropped off the agenda, until
Israel's dire economic situation began to threaten its ability to
survive. Large waves of immigration left the treasury empty and Israel
could not repay its debts.
In Feb. 1950, the
government decided to begin direct talks with West Germany to negotiate
personal compensation for Holocaust survivors. In September, a committee
for national compensation was established. Within a short time the
government had gone from complete denial of contact with Germany to
representation by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion with "the other
Germany" and complete willingness for direct dialogue.
Ben-Gurion's main
arguments were that Israel desperately needed economic assistance and
that there is no justification for giving Germany an exemption from
paying compensation. He pointed to the Germans' cardinal biblical sin:
"Hast thou killed, and also taken possessions?" (Kings I, 21:19) as
proof. The young Germany needed international legitimacy. No country
could grant it thus as much as poor little Israel. The convergence of
interests was clear.
At the end of 1951,
Menachem Begin was a defeated leader. His Herut party, a precursor of
the right-wing Likud, had lost six seats in the July 1951 elections; he
led a party with only eight Knesset seats. Following the election he
announced that he was abandoning political life. He probably would have
done so if the subject of reparations had not popped up on the national
agenda.
The issue infuriated
Begin, since almost all of his family perished in the Holocaust. He
viewed it as an incredible act of acceptance for Germany, which he still
viewed as being Nazi-controlled. Leading up to the Knesset discussion
in Jan. 1952, he was filled with a renewed vigor; he sent extreme
messages to the nation, saying things he had never said before.
The hearing took place
at Froumine House, better known as the Old Knesset, in Jerusalem and
lasted for three days. Knesset members from the coalition and Holocaust
survivors were allowed to vote. Mapam, the United Workers Party, and
Herut strongly opposed it. The General Zionists, a centrist Zionist
movement, opposed it much less.
But on the second day
of the discussions, a storm erupted: A demonstration 10,000 strong,
organized by the Herut party, took place in Zion Square in Jerusalem.
Begin delivered the speech of his life, though some may consider it the
speech he would like to forget.
He mentioned the
Altalena affair, a naval conflict in 1948 between the newly formed IDF
and the Irgun, a Jewish paramilitary group that refused to join the
unified forces. Begin said that unlike his order to refrain from firing
back at those who bombarded the Altalena, he would now give the command
to attack.
