Stop Personal Attacks on Claims Conference Leaders
The recent international Conference on Holocaust Era Assets in Prague highlighted the plight of needy Holocaust survivors throughout the world. For the first time, 46 states endorsed the conclusion that "It is unacceptable that those who suffered so greatly during the earlier part of their lives should live under impoverished circumstances at the end," and that "a high priority" must be to address "the social welfare needs of the most vulnerable elderly victims of Nazi persecution -- such as hunger relief, medicine and home care as required, as well as measures that will encourage intergenerational contact and allow them to overcome their social isolation. These steps will enable them to live in dignity in the years to come."
The conference at the end of June also dealt with other pressing unresolved issues arising out of the Holocaust, including the restitution of communal and private Jewish real property, looted Judaica and Jewish cultural property, Nazi-confiscated and looted art, the preservation of Jewish cemeteries and burial sites, the need to maintain the integrity of the sites of mass annihilation, and a categorical, unambiguous repudiation of Holocaust denial and trivialization.
The declaration issued at the end constitutes a comprehensive road map of the final phase of the complex Holocaust reparations and restitution process. Its adoption was due primarily to the tireless efforts of Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat, who headed the U.S. delegation; Ambassador J. Christian Kennedy, the State Department's special envoy for Holocaust issues; and a group of dedicated professionals who ensured that experts and stakeholders alike had genuine input into the conference proceedings. Among the critical catalysts in the latter category are the members of the senior staff of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany, popularly known as the Claims Conference.
Without question, the Claims Conference is the single most important and effective body providing assistance to Holocaust survivors throughout the world. It also is frequently under attack by individuals and groups that take issue with its process of allocating funds.
No organization should be immune from criticism. However, some of the charges directed against the Claims Conference are out of control. Among the most commonly heard accusations are that the organization's leadership is somehow hostile to Holocaust survivors. This canard must finally be laid to rest.
First, prominent Holocaust survivors are integral members of the Claims Conference and its committees. Roman Kent, chairman of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants, serves as the Claims Conference treasurer and has been a key figure in its negotiations with Germany together with Holocaust survivors Noach Flug from Israel and Ben Helfgott from England.
Sam Bloch, the president of the American Gathering, is a member of the Claims Conference Executive Committee, and American Gathering Senior Vice President Max Liebmann has been appointed as one of a number of ad personam members of the Claims Conference board. Other Holocaust survivors on the Claims Conference board include Eli Zborowski, Stefanie Seltzer and Joseph Wilf.
Three organizations of Holocaust survivors are full members of the Claims Conference, and survivors are prominently represented on all of the organization's committees.
More importantly, while one may certainly disagree with individual allocations and actions of the Claims Conference, the integrity of its leaders and their dedication to the needs and welfare of Holocaust survivors is beyond question.
Rabbi Julius Berman, the chairman of the Claims Conference, is a highly respected attorney in New York, a former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and past president of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations in America. In the interest of full disclosure, I once worked closely with Julie for several years at his law firm, Kaye Scholer LLP, and have always found him to be a man of the highest integrity who devotes himself wholeheartedly to Jewish causes, including the plight of needy Holocaust survivors.
Reuven Merhav, chairman of the Claims Conference Executive Committee, was born in Haifa shortly after his parents had immigrated to Palestine from Nazi Germany. He is a former director general of Israel's Foreign Ministry and played a key role in the rescue of Ethiopian Jews.
In the late 1930s Merhav's father, Walter Markowicz, lacked the 500 pounds sterling to purchase a certificate to enable his own father, Reuven's grandfather, to escape Germany and settle in Palestine.
"I am with the Claims Conference because I have been scalded personally," Merhav has explained. "My father never talked about it at home, but we knew he had not succeeded in getting Grandpa out. In April 1942, Grandpa was transported from Breslau to Theresienstadt and perished there half a year later."
Eizenstat, the Claims Conference's special negotiator responsible for the German negotiations since earlier this year, served as U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, Under Secretary of Commerce for international trade, Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs, and Deputy Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration.
Throughout that period, he also obtained more than $8 billion in compensation and restitution for Holocaust survivors, including payments to slave and forced laborers, the return of thousands of Jewish communal and private properties, the payments of tens of thousands of previously undisclosed bank accounts, the recovery of hundreds of pieces of looted art, and the payments on thousands of insurance policies.
Indeed, it is thanks to his selfless dedication and tireless efforts that the issue of providing a measure of justice for Holocaust survivors more than half a century after the end of World War II has been placed at the forefront of the international community's agenda.
This year alone, the negotiations spearheaded by Eizenstat and Kent resulted in 13,000 survivors who previously had been turned down becoming eligible for reparations for the first time, and in the improvement in existing pension payments to survivors totaling more than $50 million.
I am not suggesting that legitimate criticisms of the Claims Conference should not be aired, but it would behoove all involved to focus on constructive solutions that benefit the survivors rather than engaging in disingenuous personal attacks.
Menachem Rosensaft, the son of two survivors of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, is Vice President of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants and Adjunct Professor of Law at Cornell Law School. He was a member of the U.S. delegation to the June 2009 Prague Conference on Holocaust Era Assets
This article was first published by JTA - the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Al Naqba deniers and those who deny the on-going Israel ethnic cleansing of Palestinine are the Holocaust deniers of the 21st century.
Thinking Jews are well aware of this ironic and uncomfortable parallel and are working for peace between Palestinians and Israelis.
FACTS are what cannot be disputed when people make claims like you have made. Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians you say?
Does this look like "ethnic cleansing" to you?
the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) produced an article on Arab population growth and density in Israel. The study was conducted in 2001, and compares the Arab population in Israel between 1948 and 2001. The authors also predict the amount of growth in the population by the year 2020.
According to the study, 156,000 Arabs lived in Israel in 1948. They comprised approximately 19% of the population. In 2001, 1.2 million Arabic people populated the area. Because of increased Jewish immigration to Israel, the proportion of Arab residents remained at 19% in 2001. The researchers predict that by 2020, the Arab population in Israel will have increased to 2 million people and will comprise somewhere between 21% to 24% of Israel's population. On average, the proportion of Arabs increases 3.4% each year.
Funny but your post has absolutely nothimng to do with the story.
Having said that, it should at least be responded to
The Nakba people need to collect from the Arabs who not only convinced them to flee and make way for the Arab armies they said would surely be victorious, but after they lost prevented any Arab country from absorbing these refugees deliberately locking them into a life of misery - so they could blame israel and the Jews of course. History's scapegoat.
You can see today how all of that is playing out.
Sixt years later, facts are stood on their head, history is turned upside down and the Arabs who chose war not once but three times, are suddenly the world's victims.
Their Nakba like so much of their misery is self created.
They had an option to coexist peacefully with the Jews, but instead chose to wage war instead
Why are the Jordanians now stripping them of their Jordanian citizenship?
The Israelis owe them nothing
In a war which was started by the Arabs and won by Israel - to the victor go the spoils.
Had they won their war would you make the same argument for the Jews?
To the victor go the spoils?
Not only is your argument not convincing on Palestine, it undermines the arguments of the Conference on Holocaust Era Assets.
In violation of all international norms! If the victor kept the spoils, Russia would own half of Western Europe. The comment by GZLives is almost too stupid to comment on.
WRONG, the Arabs invaded when the Zionists living in Palestine decided to create a Jewish State, and we as the United States recognized that State (we should not have). Implicit in the declaration was the state would be Jewish (ethnically and religiously), not Arab or Muslim. They wanted dominance, not co-existence.
And the early israeli leadership was extremely happy to see the Arabs leave, and subsequently not let them back. The Arabs leaving was a direct result of the creation of the State of Israel (based upon being Jewish, not based upon trying to llive together), where they knew they would be second class citizens.
The Palestinian situation is a problem that was CREATED by Israel. I might not admire the Arab governments for not doing more to solve the problem, but I sure will not let Israel off the hook for making it in the first place.
P.S. There were four wars, not three. Zionist apologists seem to consistently miss the '56 war where Israel invaded Eqgypt, in collusion with France and the UK. Peole like to show a direct link between '48 and '67. Ever think there might be a closer link between '56 and '67 than between '48 and '67?
In 1948 the UN partitioned land (half of which had already been handed over for the establishment of a new country called Jordan) between the Jews and the Muslims. 700,000 Muslims left and were forced into refugee camps by their Arab brothers. 700,000 Jews left Arab countries and were totally absorbed by the Israelis during the early 1950s.
I do not see any parallel between that and the Holocaust, where loyal citizens who had never threatened the government, served in the army, attended universities, etc we rounded up and taken away to be killed.
That you do not see parallels is not evidence of anything except that you are hiding your eyes from the truth.
Wrong again. Transjordan was a Separate entity from Palestine, and was, I believe, a British Protectorate, rather than a U.N. Mandate Territory. Jordanians are not Palestinians or Vice-versa. What absolute poppycock gets thrown around these days!
You are correct greatscot! However, you might be asking too mcuh for people to use facts when discussing the history of Arab-Israeli relations. It merely confuses them!
Something similar to the holocaust reparations and restitution should be done for the Palestinian victims of the al Naqba.
An Al Naqba Restitution and Reparations Movement.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
