Central Committee of Israel Labor Party (Mapai) Meeting, 13.12.19511
Chairmen Meir Argov: We have invited our Knesset faction members, the secretariat of our party branches abroad, our members at the Histadrut [the Federation of Labor in Israel] executive, and correspondents from our party to this meeting of the central committee of our Knesset faction. I would like to emphasize that while so many of you are here, all those present are obliged to avoid any leaks of content to the outside world. No reporting in the press will be allowed other than a formal communiqué issued by the party Secretariat.
David Ben Gurion: Members of the central committee will remember that the government informed the Knesset of the note it submitted to the four occupation powers in which it demanded $1.5 billion dollars from Germany as compensation for plundered Jewish property in addition to the restitution of property to individual heirs.
When a note is submitted to Russia, it is impossible to know what happens to it. The situation in the West is different. America’s attitude towards our note was generally negative, for they assumed they would have to shoulder the burden of reparations, and the attitude of Britain and France was not too keen. We could appeal to public opinion, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, in these three countries.
Possibly, the three Western governments did exert some pressure on Germany, even though they did not inform us of any steps taken. Then came the famous statement by Chancellor Adenauer in which he admitted the German people’s responsibility, although not its guilt, and agreed to pay compensation. When we submitted our claim, we realized that we would contact the Germans directly if we knew beforehand that our claim would be accepted. Otherwise we would not have submitted it.
Meanwhile, a campaign against direct negotiations was initiated in certain newspapers. A delegation of men of letters approached me some time ago and 1 Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett was not present at this meeting as he was abroad.
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its members expressed their opposition. I told them that the question is whether or not Germany should be the murderer and the inheritor as well. I asked them:
should we not secure the plundered property for the heirs who have survived as well as for the Jewish people? They said yes, but that this assignment should be carried out by an emissary, not by the State of Israel. I retorted that I disapproved of this being done by a Shabbos Goy.2 If this action is to be executed, it must be by us. We shall not introduce the Shabbos Goy custom into our state.
According to available, authoritative information, the German government is prepared to discuss the State of Israel’s claim with representatives of world Jewry and of Israel. You are certainly aware that the Conference of Jewish Organizations in New York unanimously decided to support the claims for payment of compensation to the State of Israel and to the Jewish people. Undoubtedly, a noisy Knesset meeting on the issue of direct negotiations is awaiting us, and the cabinet would probably be able to discuss this matter as early as next week.
However, according to the government’s promise to the Knesset, no step in this direction will be taken before it is brought before the Foreign and Defense Committee, and I assume that the opposition in this committee will demand bringing the issue before the Knesset. Therefore, we must first discuss this question here and determine our position.
Our cabinet members will propose conducting direct negotiations. Whoever is sent abroad for this purpose will negotiate in the name of Israel’s government.
I do not assume we will receive the entire $1 billion, but the Germans agreed to negotiate on the basis of this sum. Not all of this sum, but most of it, would be transmitted directly to the State of Israel, and much of the rest, which will be given to the Jewish Agency and the Joint Distribution Committee, would be channeled to finance their activities in Israel. We must now discuss if this is to be done or not.
Yosef Sprinzak: I would just like to raise a question which stems from my fundamental opposition, right from the beginning, to conducting negotiations, directly or indirectly: is it really necessary that our party should be inscribed in history as the main force responsible for Israel entering direct negotiations with Germany? Why not let each of our Knesset members determine a position regarding this issue on an individual basis? I hope our party will not be inherently connected with the reparations issue.
Meir Dvorzhetsky:3 I must admit that I came to this meeting as someone who mourns for his father. It seems to me that our government’s proposal to enter direct negotiations with Germany is a corollary of a painful process taking place 2 Document no. 11, note no. 1.
3 Dr. Meir Dvorzhetsky, a Holocaust survivor who succeeded in escaping from the Vilnius Ghetto.
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in our public life. While strolling on Tel Aviv’s streets one sees numerous German books on sale; one notices that an exhibition of Heidegger’s books was opened in Jerusalem this week; after the end of WW II Yehudi Menuhin played his violin to a German audience, not to Jewish camp survivors, and yet is welcomed in our country. I could not abide his performance here and turned off my radio. A few years ago I could see a picture of Israeli mayors sitting together with German mayors at some convention abroad, drinking coffee and smiling at each other. If I had been given a file containing Ben Gurion’s speech and a pencil with the words
“Made in Germany” on it when I was a delegate to our last party convention, if Israeli writers attending the last international conference of PEN were not given any material against German writers who cooperated with Hitler, if Adenauer visited London and Paris, and Jews did not demonstrate against him in the streets – then all this would not point to an atrophy in our memory of what has happened to our people.
It is not easy to say, “Do not take money!” And especially on this rainy evening when one can picture the dire straits of our new immigrants in their tent camps. That part of me which is alive says: “Hast thou killed and also taken possession?” However, there is also a part within me which was killed, and it says “Hast thou forgotten and taken possession?” Once the Bible is cited, let me remind you of another phrase regarding the Amalekites to whose king the Prophet Samuel said: “As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women.” 4 If you ask me what is my wish regarding the German people, I would say, A mother for a mother, a father for a father, a child for a child.
My soul would rest in peace if it were possible to kill six million Germans for six million Jews. But if we cannot take revenge, at least we can spit in their faces for the entire world to see, in spite of all their payments, which could certainly help us. However, if we say, “Let us take the money and build our country with it,”
then our hands are tied.
I am already closing my eyes in an attempt to avoid seeing how an Israeli minister, or any other Israeli representative, sits together with Adenauer at the same table to sign the reparations agreement. I don’t envy the Israeli. What would his feelings be at that moment?
Then, after the signing, the Germans will deceive us. They have always deceived the entire world. Within two years Adenauer would be no more, and those who will rule after him will say that they are not responsible for his doings.
This is why I say with a burning heart, even though we are going to negotiate with the best of intentions, we are about to make a historic mistake. It is not in my power to convince you. My language is too poor to achieve that, but I beseech you: do not make such a mistake!
4 Samuel 1, 15:33.
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Yona Kesse: I can sympathize with Comrade Dvorzhetsky. But I tested myself and did not discern an atrophy in my memory. I think that any dream of taking revenge against the German people is an empty dream. Worse, anybody enmeshed day and night in this kind of wishful thinking is only destroying himself by succumbing to impotent anger. We shall not take revenge against the German people. No nation has done that, including those who also suffered under them.
This has nothing to do with retaining the Holocaust’s memory for ever.
I would like to ask Comrade Dvorzhetsky, suppose we could have conquered Germany in WW II, would we have then slaughtered six million Germans? Would we have then slaughtered one million German children? (An un-identified MK:
Yes, precisely!) Are we allowed to give up reparations because this involves sitting together with Germans? Would not this, historically, be one of the greatest acts of revenge ever taken by the Jewish people? For what was Hitler’s plan? He wanted to uproot the entire Jewish people, but we are now sitting together with Adenauer as a people who defeated that plan.
The reparations will enable us to absorb several hundred thousand Jewish immigrants, and any strengthening of the State of Israel is an act of revenge against Hitler and against all anti-Semites.
I am in favor of conducting direct negotiations, since I do not believe that gentiles would negotiate for us. Comrade Dvorzhetsky reminded us of the Amalekites. There was some sense in the Biblical saying “Remember what Amalek did unto thee – thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven;
thou shalt not forget it.”5 There was a time when the Jewish people could do that. However, nowadays we are witnessing how Diaspora Jews marry German women. And during my visit to the displaced persons’ camps in Germany, I saw for myself how Jewish couples engaged German girls as nannies for their babies. This phenomenon has nothing to do with receiving reparations from Germany. As far as
“Thou hast killed,” we are helpless to reciprocate, but as to the second part of that phrase, “… and also taken possession,” the claim of reparations will remain relevant for years to come. I would not oppose receiving the check from General McCloy, but if this is impossible, let us negotiate directly with the Bonn government.
Eliezer Lidovsky:6 As we all know, Hitler came to power not through a revolution, but through general elections in which 40 million Germans voted for him. We all know the results of his plan regarding the Jewish people. How is it that five or six years after the end of WW II, not one representative of the German people has yet publicly admitted the guilt of the German people and offered compensation to the Jews? What has suddenly happened that prompted Adenauer to utter his solemn statement? It certainly did not come about as a result of pressure emanating from within the German people. These people have remained exactly 5 Deuteronomy, 25:17,19.
6 A Holocaust survivor.
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the same as before. I have no faith in them, but I feel that if they pay us they will do so in order to get something back from us in return. We too shall have to pay, but once we do that we will sit together with them on numerous international bodies, and I wonder how we will be able to prevent this process.
As a Jew and as a human being I ask, what certainty is there that we will receive what they promise us? Our agreement to enter into negotiations with Germany for receiving compensation means that we compensate them. I oppose granting them this. I appeal to members of our central committee to keep off this road which the Germans expect us to take.
Melech Noy: Our debate is generally conducted on an irrational, emotional plane, which makes it difficult to advance rational arguments. Nevertheless, some logic must be taken into consideration, and logic makes it clear that avoiding direct negotiations, instead of harming the Germans, will harm us. We have been harmed enough by others; why should we harm ourselves?
We must be careful lest we fall prey to a racist approach in such matters. The Swiss, too, are a German-speaking people. Well, then, are we going to ban the German language? Such a collective approach is wrong. I cannot forget a story I was told by one of our party’s delegates to a recent socialist youth congress in Scandinavia. Our group of delegates decided they would avoid contact with the German youth there. When a German girl, a member of that delegation, approached our delegates and started talking to them, they simply shunned her and she became hysterical. It was only afterwards that they learned that her Socialist father was put to death by the Nazis in a German concentration camp. The entire congress vehemently deplored the Israeli behavior.
And I ask, if we say “No” to direct negotiations, what impact would it make worldwide? Would the world experience shock, and as a result draw some negative conclusions regarding the Germans? In view of what we know, nothing of the sort will happen. Let me remind you that during the war years, when news regarding the Holocaust started trickling through, there were Jews in Palestine who turned off their radios saying they were not able to listen to reports of Nazi atrocities.
If we succeed in receiving reparations through emissaries, would this be more kosher? Would not everybody know that such negotiations were carried out on our initiative? If we evade direct negotiations, would this be considered moral by the outside world?
Reparations would serve as concrete admission by the German people of what it has done to the Jews. If the reparations agreement is implemented, it will be inscribed forever in the annals of the German people; otherwise there would be nothing to testify to the crimes of the Holocaust and inscribe it in their history.
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Arieh Sheftl:7 I would like to apologize for being unable to discuss this question of reparations unemotionally since it arouses in me numerous memories from another world. In his speech, Chancellor Adenauer said that his government is prepared to conduct negotiations with representatives of the Jewish people and the State of Israel. If the interest of the German people, six years after the Holocaust, is to conduct negotiations with the State of Israel, I say that our historic interest obliges us not to conduct direct negotiations.
There are three aspects to this question: emotional-moral, logical-judicial-political, and “is-it-bad or good-for-the-Jews?” I contend that all three end up with “it-is-bad-for-the-Jews.”
Let us not deride the emotional-moral aspect, for it is this aspect which led us to the establishment of the State of Israel. Let us not be too realistic. We all know why a bride enters the marriage ceremony, but it would be obscene to spell this out. We all know why, five years after the end of the war, Germany wishes to
“marry” into the United Nations. We should not act as best man at the ceremony.
Germany will become a UN member anyway; nobody will consult us on this matter, but by conducting direct negotiations we will open international doors for Adenauer, we will grant him rehabilitation. I well remember how in the Vilnius Ghetto, when the temperature in winter went down to 39° below zero, when Jews died in the streets from cold and hunger, the Germans brought us clothes which had belonged to the thousands of Jews they had murdered and said: “Please, take them, put them on against the cold!” But the ghetto representatives refused to take the clothes which were soaked with their brethren’s blood. I was present at that event. My friend Dvorzhetsky and several rabbis were there too. We said
“No,” because we knew that the Germans wanted to photograph us putting on those clothes and thus demonstrate their humane behavior to the outside world.
There were Jews who rushed to get those clothes and even exchanged blows with each other while fighting over them. They were photographed and the pictures were later published in the German press. Our response to the Germans was indeed irrational. Another case of irrational behavior occurred when the war was over: people started digging out corpses of Jews from the fields of Treblinka to find gold rings. Jewish leaders appealed to the Polish government and asked that this atrocity be stopped, and indeed Treblinka was fenced around and the gold remained buried in the ground. That was an irrational step, but a moral one.
As to the judicial aspect, let me remind you that neither the Russians nor the Americans conducted negotiations with the Germans regarding compensation.
They came as victors and took away assets as well as scientists. Should only Jews negotiate compensation with the Germans as equals? The same as the Arabs refuse to negotiate with us regarding compensation for their refugees, so should we not sit together with the Germans. After WW I, because of the annexation of Vilnius by Poland, tiny Lithuania refused to have any contact with Poland for 7 A Holocaust survivor who succeeded in escaping from the Vilnius Ghetto.
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20 years – and the Jewish people are prepared to receive the money due it only by direct negotiations? Why not let others conduct such negotiations for us? Let a Shabbos Goy do it.
A Russian proverb says: “The wolf is not afraid of the dog, but it does not want to be barked at.” Nothing can prevent the historic process of the German people returning into the family of nations, but they don’t want us to bark.
The Germans deceived the world after WW I and deceived again during WW II. They contended that if they would be compelled to pay compensation, this would pave the road for a Bolshevik triumph in Germany. We can sign agreements with them too, but tomorrow they will cease paying, contending that if they continue compensating us, Germany would be impoverished and as a result become a Communist country. Whatever happens in our stormy world within the next year or two, we should not give the Germans a kosher certificate which at the same time would constitute testifying to our failure. Should our
The Germans deceived the world after WW I and deceived again during WW II. They contended that if they would be compelled to pay compensation, this would pave the road for a Bolshevik triumph in Germany. We can sign agreements with them too, but tomorrow they will cease paying, contending that if they continue compensating us, Germany would be impoverished and as a result become a Communist country. Whatever happens in our stormy world within the next year or two, we should not give the Germans a kosher certificate which at the same time would constitute testifying to our failure. Should our