Cabinet Meeting, 25.10.1951
Minister Moshe Sharett: The last item in my report is the matter of reparations.
I would like to inform the cabinet that we are currently engaged in an effort to clarify, indirectly through some Jewish people, the Bonn government’s position on reparations – whether they seek to acquit themselves with a few million or whether they realize that this is about hundreds of millions of dollars. I hope that within a few weeks we will know something in this regard. We are not at the point of making a decision yet, but it should be clear to the cabinet that we will face a decision on entering negotiations with the Bonn government once it becomes clear that they are ready to talk business, for there is no other way of advancing this matter. If we have submitted a reparations claim, it is not to record our claim in the annals of history but to achieve concrete results, and we must be prepared for such negotiations.
Second, a conference of Jewish organizations on the subject of reparations opens in New York today. We initiated this conference. One step was submitting the claim – a claim for collective payments. No Jewish organization had submitted such a claim in the name of the Jewish people. When we submitted the claim, several organizations paid it lip service but there was no opposition. In the course of this matter and prior to Adenauer’s speech,1 we saw a need to reinforce this claim with both Germany and the powers. In order to gain support for the claim, we proposed convening a conference of the world’s Jewish organizations.
It was our initiative. The Jewish organizations did not rise to the occasion.
No Jewish organization thought that there was a need to enlist the Jewish people in this matter.
1 On 27.9.1951, in a statement to the Bundestag in which he acknowledged the Nazi war crimes perpetrated against the Jewish people, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer announced his government’s readiness to pay compensation, and to that end enter into negotiations with representatives of world Jewry and the State of Israel.
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It so happens that this conference, which we initiated before we knew of Adenauer’s speech, is convening after his speech. At our initiative the Jewish Agency invited the Jewish organizations to this conference and they all accepted.
Even the American Jewish Committee (AJC) will attend. The organizations have been invited to the conference to have their say and to explain their positions. As this conference is convening in light of Adenauer’s speech, in which he categorically stated that they are prepared to discuss “Mit den Vertreter des judischen Staates und dem judischen Volk” [‘with representatives of the Jewish state and the Jewish people’] – Germany is prepared to discuss payments with them – this has clearly whetted the appetite.
We held a closed, unpublicized meeting with the main Jewish organizations in America in preparation for the conference. It was convened by the Jewish Agency and was attended by the Agency, the Zionist Council, the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, Bnei Brith, the American Jewish Labor Committee and the Jewish War Veterans.
There is the question of whether there will be negotiations. There is a willingness for this, but there is also the question of having one delegation appear vis-à-vis the German government or two. It is clearly desirable that there be only one delegation, that of the State of Israel. A joint delegation comprised of the State of Israel and non-governmental organizations from outside Israel is inconceivable. It is impossible for the state, inconvenient for the organizations or some of them like the AJC or the British Jewish Board of Deputies. Dr. Nahum Goldmann’s first thought was that while negotiations take place between the two countries, an advisory committee of Jewish organizations would accompany the state’s delegation, and contact be maintained between the State of Israel and the non-governmental organizations.
This was not accepted by the organizations. The Jewish Agency, too, did not accept this position. Now Nahum Goldmann and others think that there should be two delegations working in tandem. Germany must know that it has business with both the State of Israel and world Jewry.
I argued long and hard with them. I tried to propose an arrangement of division of authorities, a division of labor between the two delegations. And I said, it is out of the question that two claims for collective payments be submitted to Germany, one by the State of Israel and another by world Jewry. The claim for collective payment must be in the hands of the State of Israel. It alone should appear in this matter. Apart from that, there are additional details: restitution of property, compensation payments to those affected – and here there are both legislative and executive matters. These matters, too, must be dealt with, and the organizations will undertake to deal with those claims. They will not demand money. They will demand rapid and orderly legislation and execution.
I must report to my colleagues that I did not succeed. My views were not accepted by those present; their opinion – including that of the Jewish Agency – was that the delegation appearing on behalf of world Jewry should also submit a
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payment claim, but they are prepared – and the Joint Distribution Committee (which did not take part in the meeting) is apparently also ready to accept this, to undertake that the monies they receive will all be channeled to Israel, but not necessarily to the Government of Israel. I proposed that only we would demand money and that they would demand arrangements for the benefit of the Jewish survivors in the Diaspora, for only we can demand arrangements for the benefit of survivors who are our citizens. When I say that I did not succeed in this matter, I mean that they did not budge and are intent on demanding money.
I spoke to Nahum Goldmann in New York for half-an-hour. I argued that appearing before the Germans with two monetary claims is, first and foremost, a disgrace, and that even from a financial standpoint it is neither worthwhile nor good since the Germans could play one party off against the other. They can tell us: “Had we known that we were concluding negotiations with you alone, we could have given you more, but you know that tomorrow the representatives of the Jewish people can appear and demand money from us again” – and to the representatives of world Jewry they could say: “We must give the lion’s share of the money to the State of Israel; what can we give you? Only crumbs.” Goldmann claims the opposite is true. The organizations promise that the money they are going to get will be chanelled to Israel, and perhaps they will have to set aside a very small percentage for needs outside Israel (Minister Golda Meir: How will the grounds for the claims be divided between the two parties?) The grounds for the claims can be divided. The note we submitted stated that the State of Israel has absorbed half-a-million victims of Nazi Germany. This is a most effective rationale for convincing both the Germans and the powers. The State of Israel affirms that it has given refuge to half-a-million victims of the Nazis; but unlike in America, where each of the immigrating Holocaust survivors had to fend for himself, we have absorbed them by a collective effort of the people of this country. The state has mortgaged its future, it has borrowed money and absorbed the victims of the Nazis. The property of these people and others is still in the hands of the plunderer, the plunderer must return it.
What other grounds of basing our claims are there? There is property with no heirs. It is hard to say that all the property without heirs belongs to the State of Israel. There still are other Jews in the world. Our attempt to appear as the sole representative of the Jewish people was not accepted at this meeting. There is no likelihood that it will be accepted in a different set-up, for then, first and foremost, we would have to give up on the participation of the American Jewish Committee and the American Jewish Labor Committee.
I do not know how protracted the discussions with the Jewish Agency and the World Jewish Congress are going to be, since if we insist on the State of Israel being the sole representative of the Jewish people, the Jewish Congress would lose its raison d’être. Neither will the Jewish War Veterans agree that the State of Israel will speak on behalf of the Jewish people. We contended that it is the only
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country the Jewish people has. That is a fact. However this position was rejected by the American Jewish Committee. We wanted them to take this matter of reparations to the US State Department. They did not want to do that. They did not want to identify themselves with our note on the State of Israel representing the Jewish people. Eventually, they did take it to the US State Department but only after a verbal and written exchange.
Meanwhile, there is the conference in New York. I had a meeting with Jewish Agency representatives Israel Goldstein and Morris Buckstein. After I argued with them, Buckstein accepted that this conference will not set hard-and-fast rules on this matter. A decision on who will negotiate with the Germans does not have to made because it is not known yet whether or not they will participate in the negotiations, and there is no need to determine today what claims they will advance. But a forum will be established to act in the name of these organizations and it will issue instructions to the various participating organizations to act in agreement with the State of Israel. We, of course, want to determine in advance which way matters will go.
According to the conference’s planning, most of the sessions will be held behind closed doors. At the end there will be an open, declarative session attended by the press. A declaration will be made stating that our account with the German people has not been closed; the German people must pay for what it inflicted on the Jewish people. The speakers at this session will be Dr. Nahum Goldmann, Ambassador Abba Eban, and one or two other speakers from the non-Zionist elements. A program of action will be announced at this session. This document still has to be formulated so that it will be worthy of publication and impressive.
The conference will convene for one day or a day-and-a-half.
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