Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Meeting, 13.3.1951
Chairman Meir Argov (Mapai): At the last meeting, MK Peretz Bernstein raised the question of compensation from Germany. I brought this question to the foreign minister’s knowledge and he told me that he is prepared to provide details on this issue to the committee, as he is about to make a statement to the Knesset on this question.
Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett: Over the last twenty-four hours we have taken two steps, both related to the matter of compensation. One was towards the government of the United States in particular, by sending a note to the American ambassador here. The note expresses our protest against the policy adopted by General John J. McCloy in the commutation of sentences and release of a considerable number of principal Nazi criminals. This was done not by relying on reports published in the newspapers – I do not wish to say that the reports are incorrect, but that is not a firm basis for dispatching an international document – it was done on the basis of McCloy’s own report. McCloy’s report, officially published by the United States authorities, reached us ten days ago; our own note was composed on its basis. Today’s papers carry a condensed version of the note;
the full text will be handed to members of this committee later today.
This is a matter relating to a specific and special subject: the release, acquittal, commutation and remission of Nazi criminals adopted by the United States authorities in the zone in Germany for which they are still responsible. Quite naturally the note was submitted only to the United States as the party concerned.
We expressed in it the profound frustration of the government and people of Israel in view of this policy. We compared the spirit of the report with the spirit of the Nüremberg Trials, and elaborated what this means for the future of justice in the world. The note contained both an expression of regret and deep and grave concern; it also included a clause on the seven convicted persons who were not
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pardoned, but whose sentences have not been carried out. In an oral addendum, strong emphasis was placed on these seven convicted persons still waiting for their sentences to be carried out, not because we are a people seeking blood and vengeance, but because this touches upon the core of world justice and is also necessary in order to deter future genocide.
Unrelated to this document, yesterday we submitted to the four powers – the United States, England, France and the Soviet Union – an extensive document on reparation claims for the State of Israel.
It is my intention to deliver a statement in this regard to the Knesset this afternoon on this subject, and I would like to convey to this committee a somewhat shorter but more detailed report since on the matter of reparations and procedure I am able to tell you more than to the Knesset. I shall read the contents of the document in the Knesset in full; here I shall do it in brief.
In the middle of January we submitted a note to the four powers in which we discussed the questions of restitution of Jewish property and individual compensation.
In the note we dealt with those issues for which there are laws in force, to one degree or another, in West Germany. The subjects of these laws are compensation claims of individuals for personal damages, personal injury, detention, property expropriated and not returned, and various other individual claims. At the time we made no new demands but rather submitted a demand for reparations regarding several specific matters. There were two main issues on which we demanded that the central government, not the Länder [states] governments,1 be bound, and expressed our reservations regarding the transfer of executive authority in these matters to the German authorities before the required procedure is ensured.
In that note we stated that all these claims do not close the account between us and Germany and that we reserve the right to submit another note that will discuss the reparations problem. There is a difference between “restoration,”
“indemnity”and other matters. We have termed the former “compensation” and the latter “reparations.” There is the question of German reparations to the Jewish people, and on this matter we are about to submit a special claim in the second note. In other words, we have drawn a distinction between the clearance of personal accounts and the closing of the collective-historical account we have with Germany.
We submitted the second note yesterday, timing it in view of the present stage of preparations for the Four-Power Conference. We did not make our claim conditional on how it is dealt with at the conference, but submitted it as a definitive claim. If the powers, by their good grace, decide to release Germany from any compensation payment for themselves, we say that compensation, nevertheless, is still our due. We do not connect our claim with any existing division of compensation among the powers. Should they deem it necessary to include us in this matter, that is their business; that can be negotiated. We are not formulating the claim in this way; it stands by itself. Still, if our intention was 1 The governments of the states comprising the Federal Republic of Germany.
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not merely to utter a heartfelt cry and to add one more document to the already rich body of literature dealing with the Holocaust and cleanse our conscience – if the intention is to make an effort to achieve something – there is a question of timing, of when the issue of Germany is dormant and stagnant, and when it becomes animated and active. Our reasoning was that it is better to submit this note at a stage when the issue of Germany is on the agenda anyway, all the more so when it is proposed as something that cannot be removed from the agenda.
The aim of the Four-Power Conference is to terminate whatever remains of the postwar occupation regime and to restore Germany to the community of nations;
thus now is the time to voice our claim.
It is clear that submitting the note must be followed by exerting heavy pressure.
Thus we are now entering a phase of action in the relevant capitals, first and foremost Washington, but also London, Paris and Moscow, although the chances of achieving anything in this matter with the Western powers and with Russia are highly unequal. In America, England and France we have embarked on a campaign to enlist the press and public opinion, first and foremost Jewish public opinion, to our cause. This is not happening in the USSR, where Jewish public opinion is not heard, and there is no possibility of influencing the press – the press there is part of the state machine. In Russia we are limited to contact with the government, while in the West there is room for wide action and influencing public opinion.
This dichotomy between the open and closed worlds is well known.
We shall take this action together with submission of the note, and accordingly we have already established contact with the appropriate Jewish organizations in America and England.
An additional remark: This claim is addressed to the great powers, not Germany. We do not promise Germany anything in return for these reparations;
we do not promise that if it is accomplished we shall forgive and establish relations.
We say it is our due. We are prodding the Western powers to assist us in this matter.
Our purpose is, first of all, to obtain from them an admission of the justness of this claim so that they make it part of their plans. The chances of this happening are unclear. While I shall not say this in the Knesset so as not to outwardly weaken the claim, I must admit here that it is rather difficult to be optimistic in this matter.
We deem it incumbent that we must make a maximal effort towards achieving our aim, but at the same time it is our opinion that if our claim is not accepted, our initiative should not be considered the failure. It would have been, had we not submitted the claim, even though implementation is clearly important.
I shall read the note in its entirety in the Knesset, and that will be its first publication. I could have handed the note over for publication and delivered only a speech in the Knesset. However, it seems to me that it is better that the document is first heard in the Knesset. In the note we take Germany to account and refresh the world’s memory of the Holocaust; we do not assume that the world remembers everything – one could write a whole book about it, and we are doing
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it in five or six pages – but we thought that the best thing would be to cite quite a long passage from the Nüremberg verdict accepted by the four powers – what the trial found, what the Germans perpetrated against the Jewish people – it is a very detailed and very disturbing passage, for it contains details of how men, women and children were victimized.
We submit this note saying that the damage caused to the Jewish people in Europe – to property, of course – is conservatively estimated at $6 billion. This is an estimate reached by the World Jewish Congress Research Institute; there can be no doubting the seriousness of their research, and there is no point in starting again from the beginning. They are conversant in these matters; they added one figure to another and reached a total of $6 billion. We say that material compensation can in no way atone for the crimes and deaths. There can be no atonement for the torture and death. There can be no atonement for the destruction of cultural values. But it is inconceivable that the German people continue to enjoy the spoils while restitution of the victims, those who were saved and remained alive after the Holocaust, is heavily burdening that same Jewish people. The survivors are owed restitution, and since the majority of the victims have found refuge here, we contend that compensation is due, first and foremost, to Israel.
Second: Our state is the only one in the world entitled to make a claim in the name of the Jewish people. Do not look for a clear and absolute legal interpretation here, for this claim is not founded on conventional concepts. We constitute a special and extraordinary phenomenon: we have our own justice system and legal concepts. We say that there is a Jewish people. The damage was caused to that people as a whole. Six million souls, men, women, children, perished because they belonged to the Jewish people. When the victorious nations convened to discuss and obtain compensation, the Jewish people was not represented. Now the situation is different. Now there is a state – its embryo, the Yishuv of Palestine, existed previously. It fought, its sons and daughters fought in WW II, it always perceived itself as responsible for the Jewish people and its people took on that responsibility body and soul. It is now the claimant and it is claiming its due.
We have calculated that together with the immigrants still to come, the State of Israel will have absorbed half-a-million victims, Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied countries in which Nazism destroyed Jewish life. We are submitting a claim for $1.5 billion. We estimate the damage caused to the Jewish people at
$6 billion – and on the basis of this estimate we are demanding reparations in the sum of $1.5 billion, which they owe for the expense of restitution.
There is a view that we will not achieve results in this matter without contacts with Germany through the Bonn government and that others will not do it for us.
At present the Government of Israel has not established hard and fast principles in this matter, it has not contacted the Bonn government and is not contacting it. We do not know what the future holds, but we think that when we submit a
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note to the powers for the first time, we must bring to bear all possible influence and pressure on them. We should not make their responsibility lighter by making direct contact or by an announcement that we seek a direct approach to the Bonn government.
We shall probably have to consult further on this matter of direct approach, but the time is not yet ripe. We must first achieve the maximum possible effect from our approach to these governments, ensuring that our matter is discussed at the Four-Power Conference. We must do our utmost to influence and exert pressure during the conference deliberations.
MK Menachem Begin (Herut): I shall begin with the matter of the war criminals.
I am sorry that the note ends with an expression of regret. When he raised this issue before the Knesset,2 our faction member MK Aryeh Ben Eliezer made a concrete suggestion that the government demand the extradition to Israel of these war criminals who participated in the extermination of Jews. I am aware that according to the agreement concluded between the great powers during WW II it was determined that German war criminals would stand trial in the countries in which they committed their crimes, and I am aware that the formal legal aspect here is questionable. On the other hand, in my opinion there is no doubt that there is a legal element in this demand. The Nazis annihilated Jews in numerous countries, not just in one, or in other words, the committing of the crime cannot be delineated by the borders of a specific country – they committed crimes in Europe, and it may be said that they committed crimes in large parts of the world by incitement to racial discrimination that also occurred in America. Once the matter of specific borders falls, there is a basis for a legal demand for extradition, and the country bound by unbreakable ties to the victims is entitled to demand that those people, who committed crimes against its citizens’ brethren be brought to a court of justice within its borders.
With regard to the pardon and release of criminals there is a precedent in the case of General Alexander von Falkenhausen, who was unconditionally released by a court in American-occupied territory, and six months later, as a result of the Belgian government’s demand, was extradited to Belgium, stood trial and was sentenced. In other words, we, too, are entitled to demand, not only from a moral but a legal standpoint, that people exonerated by a denazification court, or by a court in occupied territory, be extradited to the State of Israel to stand trial here. Whether this demand will be met is another question. Here I must allude to the words of the foreign minister, that there are claims whose failure is not in their non-achievement but in their non-submission. This applies, first and foremost, to the demand I am talking about. I do not think that in the face of the inordinate release of Nazis, the State of Israel and its government can make do with an expression of regret, but a note such as this must include a concrete 2 On March 7, 1951. See Divrey HaKnesset, vol. 8, pp. 1297-1298.
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demand that if the four powers do not wish to deal with them, they should be extradited to Israel, stand trial, and the court will judge them.
I propose that the committee pass a resolution on this matter and convey it to the government. I would like to express my regret that on matters such as both the first and second notes, the government did not deem it necessary to consult this committee. Ultimately, this is not a matter of partisan politics. It is a grave matter that touches the heart of every Jew, and it would have been better had there been a meeting of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee before the two notes were sent, and the foreign minister would have heard the committee’s recommendations. That did not happen (Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett: The committee knew that we would submit such a note. The matter was publicized.) This must be axiomatic, that at least on a matter such as this there be a prior discussion and not an ex post facto one. But that is water under the bridge.
I have not fully understood – and if I am mistaken I ask the foreign minister to correct me – if the demand for compensation is with regard to everything the Germans inflicted upon us, or just for the plunder of property. This, from my viewpoint, is a fundamental difference. We shall be committing a grave sin if we demand monetary reparation for what the Nazis inflicted upon us (Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett: Not only are we not demanding it, but we are saying that there is no compensation for it.) The demand can only be one: to restore the material property that was plundered by the Nazis. The account of human life is completely different and there are no reparations for it. If the demand is for the restitution of the plundered property, then I must express my great amazement that we are demanding only a billion and a half when the damages have been estimated at six billion. As we are speaking of six million that perished, this seems incorrect. In my opinion it is a grave mistake to demand that Germany compensate the victims in the State of Israel, and that we specify what will be done with the money for the plundered Jewish property. Do we need a further explanation to justify this claim? Is justification on humanitarian grounds for the compensation of the victims necessary at all?
If we assess the plundered property at $6 billion, we should demand
$6 billion, and what we do with the money is our affair. The demands of Jews and of public bodies can also be included, as well as a collective demand for full payment for the plundered property. With regard to the calculations and accounting, that is a different phase. The impression will likely be that first of all we are reducing the overall estimate, which I am not sure is exaggerated. There is no doubt that this property is estimated at billions of dollars. We are submitting
$6 billion, and what we do with the money is our affair. The demands of Jews and of public bodies can also be included, as well as a collective demand for full payment for the plundered property. With regard to the calculations and accounting, that is a different phase. The impression will likely be that first of all we are reducing the overall estimate, which I am not sure is exaggerated. There is no doubt that this property is estimated at billions of dollars. We are submitting