German Reparations

Following WWII, relations between Israel and Germany were very tense.
The new born state was recovering from its War of Independence, faced an economy crisis, unemployment was very high and foreign currency reserves scarce. Despite the austerity, Israel’s leaders were intent on taking in what remained of European Jewry.

David Ben Gurion mentioned two approaches to deal with the financial problems: “One is the ghetto Jew’s approach, and the other is of an independent people…” He didn’t want to run after people, begging for money, but stay home and build here.

Thus, in 1951 Israeli authorities made a claim to the four powers that were still occupying post-war West Germany, regarding compensation and reimbursement of the 500,000 Holocaust Israel had resettled. Calculating their absorption at 3,000 dollars per person, they were owed 1,5 billion dollars by Germany. A Claims Conference was founded as a body to engage the German government in negotiations for material compensation of Jewish victims of Nazi persecution.

On January 7, 1952 Ben-Gurion presented the proposal for Holocaust reparations from Germany to the Knesset. “Let not the murderers of our people be also their inheritors,” Ben Gurion said, referring to the text from 1 Kings 21:19: “Hast thou killed and also taken possession?”

Three members of the opposition attacked the plan. “What price will we get for grandma and grandpa?” Elimelech Rimalt quoted his young son.

While inside the Knesset building the debate continued, the centre of Jerusalem began to look like a battle zone. On Zion Square, an ever increasing crowd of protestors listened to emotional speeches from both Joseph Klausner and Menachem Begin. “This will be a war of life and death!” Begin told the crowd. The gathering ended with the singing of the Hatikvah, and on their way to the Knesset building, groups of youth began to riot and fight with the police. At the Knesset building, better known as the Froumin house at King George Street, no one was allowed to leave – it was in a state of siege.

While the stones continued to come through the windows, Menachem Begin addressed the parliament. Soon, soon accusations from both sides were hurled at each other.
After a ten-hour debate, a Knesset vote was taken: 60:50 with 6 abstentions – thereby accepting the principle of reparations.

In the months that followed, protests against the acceptance of ‘blood money’ as the opposition called it, continued, but negotiations with Germany went ahead as scheduled.
Because of the extremist’s hostility, the Luxembourg signing ceremony had to be held in secret. The Jerusalem Post reported: “The 2 delegations sat opposite each other across a long table, Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer facing each other in the centre…. The ceremony, which lasted 13 minutes, was conducted in complete silence.”

Over the next 12 years the Bonn government agreed to pay Israel 3,450 million marks ($865 million) as reparation for the material damage suffered by the Jews at the hands of the Nazis. Under a separate agreement, Diaspora Jewry would receive 450 million marks from West Germany, while Israel would receive an annual grant of gasoline worth 18 million marks, vehicles worth 11 million, goods worth 8 million and steel products worth 6 million marks.

The preamble to the agreement read: “Whereas unspeakable criminal acts were perpetrated against the Jewish people during the National Socialistic regime of terror….and whereas the State of Israel has assumed the heavy burden of resettling so great a number of uprooted and destitute Jewish refugees from Germany and from territories formerly under German rule…”

In light of the dire economic situation, most Israelis understood the importance of the reparations agreement; however, for the Holocaust survivors the ongoing Reparations debate caused them much emotional pain. For them, money could not compensate their sufferings, although it did help them in their economic hardships.

It all came about on that historical day when the Reparations Agreement was signed on September 10, 1952, 57 years ago this month.