THE PLOT

In the 1950s Israel confronted political questions about the Holocaust that revealed fault lines between the right and left, and between survivors and the native-born. 

In the early 1950s Israel and West Germany entered negotiations over the payment of German reparations to survivors of the Holocaust. For a variety of reasons both moral and practical, David Ben Gurion supported a deal. But Menachem Begin was powerfully opposed. He was morally outraged by this “blood money,” and also saw an opportunity to make the political left look bad and for the right-wing to gain votes from Holocaust survivors. 

On January 7, 1952, Begin held a massive rally in Jerusalem’s Zion Square, marching thousands of followers to the Knesset, where the police were waiting. A riot broke out as Begin took to the Knesset floor to denounce Ben Gurion and the reparations deal. Jews were attacking other Jews over the memory of the Holocaust. Despite the opposition, Israel and West Germany agreed on reparations in September, 1952.

A year later a sensational trial again brought the Holocaust to the Israeli front and center. Malchiel Gruenwald, a Hungarian survivor, accused Rudolf Kastner, a Mapai Party official, of collaborating with the Nazis, and complicity in the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews. During the war Kastner, a Jewish community leader in Budapest, had made a deal with the Nazis to save 1,700 Jews. The Israeli government sued Gruenwald for libel. Gruenwald hired a well-known right-wing attorney, who wanted to use the trial to smear the entire left-wing establishment. That’s how the whole thing turned political and, ultimately, partially successful. A no-confidence vote was brought against the new Prime Minister, Moshe Sharett, who was soon forced to resign.

In 1955 Gruenwald was acquitted. In 1958 the Supreme Court overturned the charges against Kastner. But by then Kastner had been assassinated by members of the ultra-right wing Lehi terrorist group. 

THE PEOPLE

Menachem Begin: leader of the right-wing opposition who strongly opposed the reparations agreement with Germany.

Malchiel Gruenwald: Hungarian Holocaust survivor of the Holocaust who publicly accused Rudolf Kastner of collaborating with the Nazis. Gruenwald was sued by the Israeli government. 

David Ben Gurion: Prime Minister of Israel, who advocated for a German-Israeli agreement over Holocaust reparations.

Rudolf Kastner: Hungarian Jewish community leader, and later Mapai Party official, accused of collaboration with the Nazis. His subsequent trial was a sensation that split fault lines in Israeli society, and led to his assassination. 

Moshe Sharett: signer of the Declaration of Independence and Israel’s second Prime Minister. Party as a result of the political fallout from the Kastner trial, Sharett resigned after less than two years on the job. 

THE BIG IDEAS

For hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors, living in the Jewish State could be lonely and isolating. Although it was a place to begin rebuilding their lives, society didn’t always welcome their traumatic memories. There was a contrast between the self-identity of the native Israeli as a strong Jew who fights, with the (misplaced) perception of Holocaust victims as helpless victims. The result was a nation filled with repressed memories and undeclared trauma, with little national or collective outlet for healing.

Were Holocaust reparations simply blood money for atrocities that could never be monetarily atoned for? Or were they a just restitutions for a poor and struggling nation? Many Israelis, especially on the right and amongst survivors, held the first point. But Ben Gurion argued that the reparations could be used to help absorb and provide for survivors, and that Germany should not get to keep the wealth they looted from the Jews during the war.

Although Israel struggled with the Holocaust in the political arena, in 1953 the small nation opened a unique institution in Jerusalem. It was called the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, better known by its Hebrew name, Yad Vashem, which means “a memorial and a name.” Yad Vashem became the central site for commemorating the Holocaust, recording the names of the victims, honoring those who had saved Jews, conducting research and education, and, above all, preserving the memory of those who died.

FUN FACTS

When Ben Gurion wanted to refer to Begin during meetings of the Knesset, he refused to address Begin by name, instead calling him, “the guy sitting next to…” whichever Knesset member Begin happened to be sitting by.

The official reparations signing ceremony, which took place at a secret location in Luxembourg, lasted only 13 minutes.

Under Israeli law, every foreign diplomat, from presidents on down, is required by Israel to visit Yad Vashem on their first official visit to the country.

© Jason Harris 2020