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Europe’s Bias: From the Holocaust’s Aftermath to Today’s Anti-Semitism

 
Filed under: Antisemitism
Publication: Jewish Political Studies Review

Jewish Political Studies Review

Jewish Political Studies Review 14:3-4 (Fall 2002)

Part I

An intensified defamation campaign against Israel and world Jewry has been taking place during the last two years. Various European governments and media play an important role in it. The moral aspects of post-war European attitudes toward the Jews have as yet been poorly analyzed. Their study within an integrated framework is becoming an urgent Jewish public affairs issue. As so little field research has been done much can be learned by looking at a mosaic of vignettes of individual countries such as France, Austria, Poland, the Baltic and Scandinavian countries, Switzerland and the Vatican. The paradigm of The Netherlands is discussed in more detail. This essay illustrates how part of the infrastructure for Europe’s current discriminatory attitudes toward Israel and the Jews started to be laid immediately after the war.

I. The Outburst of Anti-Semitism

Today, Israel and the Jewish people face an onslaught of physical and verbal attacks: Palestinian violence, with a heavy component of suicide attacks in Israel; aggression against Jewish institutions and individuals in many countries; worldwide verbal anti-Semitism in classic and new forms. The Palestinian and Arab political leadership, Islamic fundamentalists, political opportunists, neo-Nazis and neo-fascists, extreme leftists, part of the media, Arab-influenced international institutions as well as some self-hating Jews, motivate and catalyze these attacks. Even limited analysis shows many anti-Israel expressions are classic anti-Semitic motifs recycled.

For many years numerous Jews and non-Jews considered anti-Semitism to have been relegated to the confines of history, especially in Europe. However, current perceptions are well expressed by the UK’s Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks:

Let me state the point as simply as I can: anti-Semitism is alive, active and virulent in the year 2002, after more than half a century of Holocaust education, interfaith dialogue, United Nations declarations, dozens of museums and memorials, hundreds of films, thousands of courses, and tens of thousands of books dedicated to exposing its evils; after the Stockholm Conference, January 2000, after the creation of a National Holocaust Memorial Day, after 2,000 religious leaders came together in the United Nations in August 2000 to commit themselves to fight hatred and engender mutual respect….What more could have been done? What more could and can we do to fight anti-Semitism?1

The current wave of anti-Semitic attacks is the strongest since the Holocaust. Simultaneously, Jews must confront many other challenges using their limited human and financial resources. It is thus good policy to start with analyzing macro issues to obtain a strategic understanding of their main elements and origins. Only then can one effectively focus one’s defense and muster one’s allies. Due to its magnitude and worldwide character, current anti-Semitism has become such a strategic macro-issue.

Religious, Ethnic and State-Oriented Anti-Semitism

The Jews, more than others, have endured hateful myths. Such myths can be categorized under the heading of anti-Semitism. For centuries many held all Jews responsible for a death verdict in a Roman trial, 2,000 years ago, of a Jew considered to be God. A large number of these people were indoctrinated with hate for the Jews. In its religious anti-Semitism, Christianity developed the myth of the structurally evil Jew. The Nazis exploited this to its genocidal consequences in their ethnic anti-Semitism. The dominant proponents of the new anti-Semitic variant, oriented against the State of Israel, are found in the Arab and Islamic worlds. This new type of assault must be viewed in the context of its predecessors.

Israel today, like Jews for centuries, is dehumanized and demonized. Jewish-related symbols, such as the notion of Holo-caust, are hijacked and used against the Jews. While the anti-Semites’ classic desecration of cemeteries and tombstone destruc-tion continues, it has found a contemporary symbolic companion in the burning of Israeli flags in public places, not only in the third world but also in Western countries.

In April 2002, at a demonstration of the Swiss-Palestinian Society in Bern, Franco Cavalli spoke. He was then the parliamentary leader of the Social Democratic Party (SP), part of the Swiss government coalition. There he claimed in public that Israel “very purposefully massacres an entire people” and undertakes “the systematic extermination of the Palestinians.” Israeli flags were torched at the demonstration.2

The Perversion of Human Rights

Irwin Cotler, a member of the Canadian parliament, legally represented Nelson Mandela and Andre Sakharov. He now sees how the human rights ideas he has fought for are increasingly perverted into a tool against Israel. He says: “Anti-Semitism now uses the rhetoric of international law and human rights as a protective cover to discriminate against Jews through unfair and one-sided criticism of Israel….We are witnessing a new anti-Jewishness, one that is a dramatic transformation, grounded in the classical anti-Semitism….It is a global phenomenon and that is the singling out of Israel and the Jewish people for differential and discriminatory treatment in the international arena.3

Cotler sees discrimination by the enemies of the Jews as a commonality between old and new versions of anti-Semitism: “Traditional anti-Semitism denied Jews the right to live as equal members of society, but the new anti-Jewishness denies them the right of the Jewish people to live as an equal member of the family of nations.”4 This view is also increasingly being adopted by scholars from other perspectives. Ruth Kluger, former chair of the German department at Princeton says: “while the specter of fascism has passed, a latent anti-Semitism-with Israel being used as an illegitimate pretext-seems to be creeping back…an ever-present global ‘obsession’ with the Jewish State seems to betray an outlook that still sees the Jew as ‘foreigner’ or ‘antagonist’ personified.”5

Sacks says:

What we are witnessing today is…a mutation so ingenious, demonic and evil that it paralyzes the immune systems the West built up over the past half-century….The mutation is this: that the worst crimes of anti-Semites in the past-racism, ethnic cleansing, attempted genocide, crimes against humanity-are now attributed to Jews and the State of Israel, so that if you are against Nazism, you must ipso facto be utterly opposed to Jews….I am shocked that so few non-Jews in Europe have recognized it and denounced it.6

Holocaust Denial and its Arab Followers

There are many links between Arab anti-Semitism and the denial of the Holocaust. Several arguments and methodologies used by the Arab defamers of Israel and the Jews are similar to those of Holocaust deniers. Holocaust denial in the Western world has been expressed mainly in the margins of society. In the Arab world the perpetrators of these lies are among its central figures and institutions.

In August 2002, the Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-Up in Abu Dhabi organized a conference on “Semitism.” This think-tank-whose chairman, Sultan Bin Zayed al Nahyan, is deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates-claimed the Holocaust was a false fable.7

At the conference, its executive director, Mohammed Khalifa Al-Murar, said: “Any discourse about Jews’ history will remain incomplete if it doesn’t shed light on that aspect of Jews that they always try to hide, i.e., their non-Semite origin.” The Arab League’s head of Israeli affairs Ahmad Saleed Jarad, who represented it at the meeting, made comments that seemed to endorse Murar’s view.”8 Only after major criticism from American Jewish organizations did the Arab League distance itself somewhat from anti-Jewish statements made at the conference.9

Frequently recurring claims made by Palestinian deniers of historical facts are that there was never a Jewish temple in Jerusalem, or that the Palestinians are descendants of Canaanites who were driven out by the Israelites in Biblical times. One of the textbooks used in the Palestinian schools says: “The Canaanite Palestinians are the ones who invented the alphabet.”10 In another “the Arab Jebusites built it [Jerusalem] five thousand years ago in that distinguished place and it has remained since that time a capital of Palestine during the ages.”11

Taken in context, one may recall that 25 years ago, Zahir Muhsein, head of military operations of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, claimed in an interview that there was no specific Palestinian people: “There are no differences between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. We are part of one people, the Arab nation. It is only for political reasons that we carefully emphasize our Palestinian identity…the existence of a Palestinian identity is there exclusively for tactical reasons….Because Golda Meir says that there is no Palestinian people, I say that there is a Palestinian people which is different from Jordan.”12

Denying the Arab Role in the September 11 Attacks

Assaults against Jews are often extended to much wider groups. Denial of facts is one important example. Despite foolproof evidence, many in the Islamic world still refute that those who carried out the murderous attacks in the United States on September 11, 2002 were Arabs. At the same Abu Dhabi conference, Mohammed Khalifa Hassan, director of the Center of Oriental Studies at Cairo University, said that “the events of September 11 were concocted, because we still do not possess concrete evidence of real perpetrators and their objectives.”13

According to a Gallup Poll, such views represented the majority of the Muslim world which “do not believe the attacks of September 11 were orchestrated by Osama bin Laden, or by Arabs, or by Muslims.”14 These findings lead one to ponder how deeply-seated is the denial of shameful facts ingrained into contemporary Muslim culture, even if one does not give much credence to polls in totalitarian or authoritarian states.

Dr. Shibley Telhami, who analyzed the findings of the survey on behalf of Gallup, said: “I was surprised that very few, even among the elites, believe that Bin Laden did it…it’s clear that there is almost a unanimous view that Bin Laden was not responsible for September 11.”15

Denial on Trial

One needs to develop adequate methodological tools to fight denial. For this purpose, a study of the trial, which the British historian David Irving initiated against American historian Deborah Lipstadt, assumes major relevance. It took place in London in the beginning of 2000. Lipstadt claimed, in a book, that Irving knew the evidence about the Holocaust period but distorted it until it coincided with his ideological leanings and political agenda.16 Irving frequently denied the Nazis’ systematic plan to exterminate the Jews. He also claimed that the Jews’ statement that the Nazis used the gas chambers in Auschwitz for this extermination was a lie. Seldom disputes on historical events were fought out in such detail as in this trial.

Justice Charles Gray ruled that Lipstadt and the publishers had justified their claims. He also concluded that Irving “repeatedly makes assertions about the Holocaust which are offensive to Jews and unsupported by or contrary to the historical record.”17 One does not have to spend the time and expenses of the London trial in order to-by using its methods of analysis-prove the same about the abovementioned Arab and Palestinian fact deniers.

Both the Western Holocaust deniers and the Arab history distorters reveal much about our society. Lipstadt commented on the denial phenomenon: “It is important to understand that the deniers do not work in a vacuum. Part of their success can be traced to an intellectual climate that has made its mark in the scholarly world during the past two decades. The deniers are plying their trade at a time when much of history seems to be up for grabs and attacks on the Western rationalist tradition have become commonplace.”18 She stresses that Holocaust denial is a threat to documenting responsible history. “If one history can be denied, any history can be denied. History then becomes totally subjective. It becomes negotiable, i.e., whatever one states it is.”19

Alliances: Extreme Rightists and Arab Anti-Semites

The links between extreme Western rightists and Arab and Islamic fanatics develop in many other worrisome ways. In November 2001, Michel Friedman, the German president-elect of the European Jewish Congress, told the German daily Die Welt that, top on his agenda of issues confronting his organization in the coming years, is combating anti-Semitism. He believes it is insufficient to continue doing this only on a national level, expressing the fear that collaboration might develop between Islamic extremists and rightist radicals. In Germany, for example, the right-wing NPD party and many other extreme rightists viewed favorably the attack on the U.S.20

In October 2001, members of the German neo-Nazi National Democratic Party, during a demonstration in Berlin marking the 11th anniversary of German reunification, celebrated the September 11 attacks against the United States. In banners and speeches, they defined these as a justified response to American policy and protested against Germany’s support of “American terrorism.”21

One demonstration participant was Holocaust denier Ahmed Huber, who admitted to having met Bin Laden followers in Beirut several times. Huber was one of the organizers of a Holocaust denial conference there earlier in 2001. This was canceled due to international pressure. He was on the board at Al Taqwa, a financial company in Lugano, whose bank accounts were frozen after President Bush published the names of individuals and firms suspected of having links with Al Qaida, in which both Huber and Al Taqwa figured.22

On 14 July 2002, France’s national holiday, a right-wing attempt was made on the life of President Chirac. Afterwards it became known that the perpetrator, Maxime Brunerie, belonged to Unité radicale-an extreme right-wing group which proposed to collaborate with Arabs against the Jews.

Durban: The Peak of the Anti-Semitic Propaganda War

The current anti-Semitic propaganda war peaked at the United Nations Anti-Racism Conference in Durban, September 2001. The main defamers were Arab governments, supported by many Muslim countries and a considerable number of Western NGOs. Terms such as “genocide,” “Holocaust,” “ethnic cleansing,” and even “anti-Semitism” were hijacked by the defamers and are now being used against the Jews, who have been the primary victims of all these phenomena.

Canadian political scientist Anne F. Bayefsky summarized the events thus:

The World Conference Against Racism became a forum for racism. Human rights was used not as a facilitator for communication but as a weapon of political interests antithetical to human rights protection. A large group of states sought to minimize or exclude references to the Holocaust, redefine or ignore Anti-Semitism, and isolate the State of Israel from the global community as a racist practitioner of apartheid and crimes against humanity. The vestiges of Jewish victimhood were to be systematically removed by deleting the references to Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, to be displaced by the Palestinian victim living under racist, Nazi-like oppression.

The hate literature distributed during the NGO conference included caricatures of Jews with hooked noses, Palestinian blood on their hands, surrounded by money, and Israelis wearing Nazi emblems. At the Government Conference, there was daily distribution by NGO participants of literature reading “Nazi-Israeli apartheid”; while inside the drafting committees, states such as Syria and Iran objected to the inclusion of Anti-Semitism or the Holocaust on the grounds that Anti-Semitism was a “complicated,” “curious,” and “bizarre” concept, and reference to the Holocaust would be imbalanced or “favoritism.”23

At Durban, several currents of the Western human rights movement made common cause with countries who turn beheadings and amputations into a public spectacle. At the November 2001 plenary assembly of the World Jewish Congress in Jerusalem, Cotler denounced a number of Western organizations for hijacking the human rights movement.

At the 2002 UN World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, Palestinians tried to disrupt Israeli events. This time the South African government restrained the demonstrators. Yet Shimon Samuels of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Paris, who attended the summit, concluded that:

what was begun in Durban has not ended here….The undercurrents, despite all the important themes of the conference, the thrusts of foreign policy, are the same….What happened in Durban made the United Nations central to the new human rights theology, in which Israel is the anti-Christ….Israel then becomes the villain in every story, whether the issue at hand is sustainable development, health or human rights….You are the enemy of mankind….What is happening here on the level of non-governmental organizations is exactly that continuation.24

The UN “Nazifies” Israel

Cotler cites the United Nations Commission on Human Rights as another example of the prejudiced attacks on Israel. While the UNCHR has never accused China-which has one of the world’s poorest performances on human rights-30 percent of its indictments are against Israel.25 He added that in 2001 “the United Nations Commission on Human Rights condemned Israel for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Language out of the Nuremberg indictment was used against the main victims of the Nazis. Many European countries voted for it. One might call it ‘the nazification of Israel under the auspices of the United Nations’ to which many of the world’s democracies acquiesced.”26

Similarly Israel became the only country indicted in over 50 years of the Geneva Convention, “not Cambodia, not [any country in the Balkans] with its ethnic cleansing, not Rwanda with its genocide, not Sudan with its killing fields.”27

The European Union in a Supporting Role

When discussing the current defamation of Israel and the Jews, some remark that the main defamers are undemocratic Arab countries, which did not enjoy much moral standing in the world even before 11 September 2001. The argument of the defamers’ defenders is that one cannot compare this with the Nazi era, whose ideas found resonance in many European countries where there was much anti-Semitic prejudice. This, however, seems too easy a way of avoiding a complex new problem.

In recent years, the European Union has chosen regularly to take extreme pro-Arab positions in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The undemocratic character of the Arab world is intentionally ignored, as is support for terror among sizable sectors of Palestinian society, as well as fascist and neo-Nazi remarks in the Arab world. European leaders similarly close their eyes when Palestinians execute or lynch other Palestinians.

On the other hand, moral condemnation of Israel has often been extended beyond all reason by European politicians and media. Although the Europeans are followers rather than leaders in the defamation of Israel, they have been playing a significant role. Their attitudes are particularly hypocritical given Europe’s past, not only during the Holocaust, but also before and after it.

Governments Concealing Anti-Semitism

Meanwhile, Europe is experiencing many anti-Semitic attacks. The extent is concealed by European governments-a fact discussed extensively in a report published in August 2002 by the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, entitled Fire and Broken Glass: The Rise of Anti-Semitism in Europe. Michael Posner, executive director of the independent New York-based group, said on the occasion of its publication: “European governments are inadequately reporting anti-Semitic violence, with some providing little public information on even the most serious hate crimes….Yet timely, accurate, and public information on crimes of racist violence are essential for effective action to suppress such violence.”28

In a press release, the organization confirmed: “In Europe, anti-Jewish animus has included physical assaults on individuals-and fire-bombings, gunfire, window smashing, and vandalism of Jewish homes, schools, synagogues and other community institutions. Vandals have desecrated scores of Jewish cemeteries across the region, daubing anti-Jewish slogans, threats, and Nazi symbols on walls and monuments, while toppling and shattering tombstones.”

It added:

Jews and people presumed to be Jewish have been assaulted in and around centers of the Jewish community, in attacks on Jewish homes, and in more random street violence. Attackers shouting racist slogans have thrown stones at children leaving Hebrew-language schools and worshippers leaving religious services. In street violence, attackers shouting racist slogans have severely injured people solely because they were thought to have a Jewish appearance.

The authors concluded that, “the resulting environment, particularly where anti-Jewish attacks occur with relative impunity, is a climate of fear and encouragement for further hatred and violence.”29

Analyzing Europe’s Attitudes

In previous decades much attention has been given to European attitudes toward the Jews during the Holocaust. Knowledge of these has significantly increased in recent years. The emergence of major international discussions on material restitution issues has catalyzed additional historical research. This has also included some study on how European societies related to the Jews in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Yet this major subject remains largely opaque. This essay will show how some post-Holocaust events indicate that parts of the infrastructure for Europe’s current discriminatory attitudes toward Israel and the Jews started to be laid immediately after the war.

World War II national myths have played an important role in Europe’s distorted post-war attitudes toward the Jews. Sociologist Shmuel Trigano notes how for decades French society was unwilling to discuss the Shoah. He attributes this suppression to the myth created by General Charles de Gaulle that the true France was akin to the Free French abroad and the underground opponents of the Nazis. “Accepting the exaggerated tale of major resistance meant France-with respect to its Vichy past-did not need a thorough self-investigation unlike the Germans.”30

Based on such national myths, many other European governments claim till today that they can assume no or only limited responsibility for misdeeds committed against the Jews during the war as their country was occupied. For instance, on 3 April 2000, in an interview with Israeli radio, then Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok repeated what he had said the previous day to Dutch community representatives in Israel: “The Dutch have never been responsible for the misbehavior of the Germans in The Netherlands during the war.”31 Kok made no reference at all to the responsibility for Dutch authorities, institutions and individual wartime misbehavior toward the Dutch Jews. Yet, in preparing the first steps toward extermination of the Dutch Jews, the Germans were greatly assisted by the Dutch administrative infrastructure. The occupiers had to employ only a very limited number of their own; the rest was taken care of by the Dutch, mainly but not exclusively, upon their instructions.32

Regarding discrimination against the Jews after the war, when Western European countries were again ruled by democratic governments, their official successors often prefer to remain silent. From these post-war authorities a line of responsibility runs toward those in power today. For present governments, admitting the Jews’ post-war discrimination means accusing one’s democratic predecessors of behavior unbecoming of democrats.

From History to Public Affairs

Had one asked a few years ago whether an integrated study of Europe’s moral attitudes in the post-war period ranked high on the wide and diversified Jewish agenda, the answer would most likely have been in the negative. Its relevance might have been explained-had it been considered at all significant-by saying: “The historical truth has to be told” or “It is part of the general study of human rights, which is now an important issue in the Western world.”

What seemed not so long ago a matter of interest almost exclusively to specialized historians, has since gained a different dimension. Assessing moral attitudes in post-war Europe toward the Jews has become important, if not crucial, for current Jewish public affairs. In the exposure of the anti-Semitic character of many European attacks on Israel, examples taken from Europe’s own recent history must play a major role.

The Nazis Started with Words

The current campaign of hatred against Israel and the Jewish people recalls many elements of pre-war decades. Though there have been several waves of anti-Semitic outbursts since the war, none have reached today’s intensity. One need only recall the Nazis attempt during the Weimar Republic era to “kill the Jews with words.” Their propaganda instilled a virulent anti-Semitism in much wider circles of European society than had previously been the case. After the Nazis’ rise to power in 1933, verbal attacks were followed by economic discrimination, financial despoilment and later by the physical destruction of the Jews.

It is not widely known that, during the war, several prominent Nazi opponents held discriminatory attitudes toward the Jews. Carl Goerdeler, Leipzig’s pre-war mayor, was set to become Germany’s prime minister had the attempted assassination of Hitler in 1944 by Graf Stauffenberg succeeded. In his testament he writes that what the Germans did to the Jews would remain an indelible stain on their history. Israeli historian David Bankier points out that nevertheless Goerdeler felt German citizenship after the war should be granted only to a small elitist minority among the surviving Jews who were willing to assimilate completely.33

Bankier states that “Goerdeler’s were deeply entrenched stereotypes of the educated European. They might be summarized as saying that the Jews got equality of rights which they did not deserve as they were not Europeans. They thus should not exploit their rights and keep a low profile.” Bankier also points out that in the Czech, Polish and French underground many held positions that Jews-if not all, then most of them-after the war should be discriminated against as citizens.34

A leading clandestine publication of the Polish Christian Democrats, Narod, wrote on 20 January 1942:

The Jews, both morally and economically, were always a burden on the life of our nation….The events of the last two and a half years have created a situation that has made it impossible to agree to the return of the Jews to their privileged position without exposing our country to upheavals that would undermine the well-being of our new statehood. We have to state it openly: not only do we refuse to restore the Jews their political and property rights [lost during the war] but we want them to leave our country altogether.35

[The] Jewish problem must be resolved through gradual emigration of those Jews who after the German extermination policy still remained alive, using the resources supplied by world Jewry for this purpose. The starting point [for the Polonization of our economy] will be state seizure of the heirless Jewish property, the confiscated German property; and proceeds from war indemnification.36

Some officials of the Dutch government-in-exile in London had different worries when preparing for post-war Holland. They were concerned about the possible impact of Jews receiving significant donations from abroad after the war. “It is possible…that large donations may be made available from the United States especially for Dutch Jews. Should a similar drive grow too large, it might accentuate the gap between the non-Jewish and Jewish sector of our people. The Government should manage to convince the donors [of this danger], however well-intentioned they may be.”37

Historian Ronald Zweig says that during the war the Allies intended “to use Jewish communal and heirless private property to resettle the refugees, most of whom were not thought to be Jews. The Jewish organizations vehemently opposed this, arguing that Jewish property should be exclusively used to rehabilitate Jews. When the Americans and British liberated many Jews, the American authorities accepted this position. They had expected far fewer Jewish survivors.”38 

Analyzing Moral Attitudes

When analyzing European post-war attitudes toward the Jews one realizes how complicated-and at the same time poorly studied-this subject is. Contemporary Jewish history is a very broad and diversified field in which research has been limited. The period to be investigated spans well over 50 years. Europe cannot be analyzed as an entity. There is a vast difference between democratic Western Europe and the Eastern European countries under communist regimes until the late 1980s. Furthermore, there are great variations in attitude between individual Western European countries, even though common patterns recur. The studies undertaken deal mainly with issues in specific countries rather than Europe-wide. The aggregation of the limited material available does not enable a general overview of the subject to be ascertained.

To gain a wider perspective a large number of issues must be viewed from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Attitudes need to be researched within an integrated framework, dealing not only with their historical aspects but also those of politics, culture, education, psychology and communications.

Thus, the main way to start the search, after the broader picture, is by assembling fragments on individual subjects on a per country basis. Many topics merit monographs yet to be written. In their absence, understanding of the overall issue studied will have to remain imprecise. By analyzing the attitudes of individual countries toward Jews according to key elements, as outlined hereinafter over the years, an overall picture on the subject under study can be developed. This will be a very costly project.

In the meantime a strategic approach is proposed hereinafter. It consists of a mosaic of vignettes, which together provide an impressionistic view.

II. The Analysis of Europe’s Moral Attitudes

 

The Aftermath of the Holocaust

After the Holocaust, the Jewish survivors who had been excluded from European societies sought social re-integration. Many had lost their entire families. They desired to return home or emigrate to better societies and find a place in them. Whoever had suffered and been persecuted or tortured expected his persecutors to be punished for their crimes. Whoever had been robbed, wished to speedily retrieve his property or be adequately compensated for it. These issues are now mainly relegated to the past, although a few elderly war criminals are still facing trials or investigation and several financial restitution issues are still being discussed.

Pieter Lagrou has studied various aspects of the reception of the Jews after the Holocaust.39 He writes:

Post-war Europe was not a promising setting for the emergence of a multi-cultural, tolerant and cosmopolitan society, very much to the contrary. The emigration of hundreds of thousands of Jews from Europe during these years, including the miserable conditions of a protracted period of transit in DP camps where emigrants constituted themselves hostage to the political arm-twisting between Britain and the United States about emigration quota to Palestine and America respectively, are a powerful illustration of this.40

The Main Elements of Analysis

The main elements to be systematically analyzed in order to determine Europe’s moral attitude toward the Jews in the post-war period are:

1. The nature of the Jews’ social re-integration into the various European countries after the war. For instance, how were they welcomed back and integrated into society when they returned from concentration camps or hiding? To what extent were their rights restored? What general efforts were made to rehabilitate those who had been persecuted?

2. The way European countries dealt with the moral aspects of economic restitution. For example, did the governments require the general population to show financial solidarity with those who were hardest hit? Did the Jews retrieve their stolen possessions? Did they receive compensation for unrecoverable property? If economic restitution existed, how long was the process drawn out? How bureaucratic was it, and how humane were its procedures? Did the Jews receive payments for the non-material damage and suffering they had been caused?

3. Was justice done? What effort was made to arrest and try criminals? How were the Jews’ persecutors punished? Were crimes committed against Jews an important factor in trials? These are not only legal issues; they also have moral implications.

4. How is the Holocaust remembered? Is Holocaust history recounted at all? If so, how truthfully? This will become increasingly important as so many Holocaust survivors have already passed away and the remaining witnesses are mainly child survivors. This leads to a further question: What will be the future of memory? Large parts of the battle to gain truth on this issue are still before us.

5. What, if anything, do European countries recount about post-war history? How much do politicians embellish the role of government authorities in the process of the Jews’ re-integration after the war in which they were often discriminated against.

6. How is today’s generation being educated about the Holocaust and its aftermath? How will Holocaust education be structured in the future? The answers to these questions will indicate what moral lessons have been drawn from the Holocaust era.

The above list is incomplete. One can suggest additional more limited indicators of moral attitudes for investigation. One example would be how saviors of the Jews were treated in post-war society, particularly if they had broken the law of their country in doing so.

Other Indicators

It would be incorrect when studying post-war European attitudes toward Jews to focus solely on social and sociological aspects by questioning how the Jews professionally progressed in post-war societies or how they mingled with non-Jews. Some Jews have reached very senior political positions in various Western European countries. A number of them have held top positions in the judicial and academic world.

The many mixed marriages of Jews may be considered both a sign of assimilation and-from a social point of view-acceptance by the non-Jewish European society. Yet all this forms only one part of the picture, which has often been considered, without enough attention given to other important aspects.

The recent outburst of anti-Semitism is so substantial it must have been latent for many years. Its violent eruption indicates important negative European attitudes toward the Jews, which have been ignored. Only part of these can be explained by the fact that, on some issues, European and Jewish or Israeli interests are or seem antithetical to each other.

The “Moral Restitution” Debate

The discourse concerning Europe’s moral attitudes toward the Jews is not entirely new, however. In the wake of the highly publicized debate of the last few years on supplementary financial restitution, the inaccurate phrase “moral restitution” was coined. This concept has remained a vague, junior partner of material restitution. Moral restitution has often been mentioned in the media without being defined in detail, nor its importance properly assessed.

Understanding financial or material restitution is easy: it concerns the return of money, securities, buildings, art, and other possessions stolen during World War II. Some were restituted, but many still need to be returned nearly 60 years after the war. Even if interest were to be paid on top of this, only limited justice is done to Holocaust victims’ family members who recently received what was rightfully theirs for decades.

Using the term “moral restitution” elicits varied reactions. It has become a dividing-rather than a uniting-term. Part of the criticism is semantic: speaking of restitution is only appropriate for financial or material issues. Money, securities and other assets can be returned to their rightful owners, and or compensation paid.

A Confused Discussion

Some critics of the term “moral restitution” argue that an alternative expression for the subject discussed should have been employed. They accurately claim “restitution” is impossible for immoral acts. The guilty can be punished. This is primarily a matter of justice with moral aspects. The survivor cannot return to his former self prior to the injustice done to him; the family members he lost cannot be resuscitated; his suffering cannot be undone; the resulting traumas will remain throughout his lifetime.

In the confused and dispersed discussion, others maintain “moral restitution” is achieved when rights to financial restitution are recognized. They argue that, because a financial wrong was committed, the receipt of money simultaneously symbolizes financial and moral rehabilitation. This concerns both material restitution and payments for non-material damages, such as suffering and damage caused to health. Some survivors have refused to request the financial restitution due to them, arguing that this “blood money” would morally absolve their persecutors.

Yet others claim that, if some Jews forego battling for those payments, inter alia, out of fear that it may create anti-Semitism, the fact that it is granted, still amounts to moral restitution.

Guilt is Recognized

Another opinion considers that the fact that the Holocaust has become an issue of irrevocable guilt in European history is a sign of moral restitution. Others consider Europe’s support for the establishment of Israel the greatest moral rehabilitation of the Jews possible. Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer expressed this position at the first Herbert Berman Memorial Symposium in 2001.41

Analyzing moral attitudes toward Holocaust issues in Europe in an integrated manner may thus lead to unsatisfactory approaches: either to bring the various aspects of Europe’s moral attitudes toward the Jews as defined above under the inadequate heading of “moral restitution”-accepting this phrase since it has often been used for some of the elements mentioned. Another possibility is coining a new term, such as “moral rehabilitation.” Both can be considered inadequate and in the following analysis neither expression has been used.

Are Apologies Desirable?

Another important aspect of this unfocused and chaotic debate concerns the various apologies for what was done to the Jews during and after the war. These have either been made separately or have accompanied material restitution settlements. Some observers claim that many apologies do not denote true moral motivation; rather they are the result of political pressure and fear of economic boycotts in the United States. These arguments are made with regard to the apologies made by the Swiss and some Eastern European states.

Similarly, it is claimed that Germany could not have re-entered the family of civilized nations without financially compensating the persecuted for material restitution and immaterial damages. For this reparation process, its government coined a semantic misrepresentation: Wiedergutmachung (“making good again”). Its name pretended that rather than providing some justice to victims it would make good what never could be repaired.

Others argue that Jews should not seek apologies, because deciding whether to apologize is a matter for the individual conscience. Furthermore, the argument goes, what value is there to apologies, which are not being made by either the criminals themselves or representatives of their generation, but by the next generation. This makes them less meaningful.

The opposing argument posits that by obtaining apologies-even forced ones-a clear declaration of irrevocable national guilt from the Jews’ counterparts will remain for future generations when all survivors will have passed away. There is much to be said for the latter. Once countries have recognized their guilt, a common basis of what is normative has been established. With the recurrent explosions of anti-Semitism this is likely to be relevant in many future situations. Such apologies cannot just be quoted and used in future discussions and conflicts with governments, but also with others with whom Jews or Israel seem to regularly conflict (e.g., the Vatican and the Red Cross).

III. Psychological and Communication Factors

Psychological Rehabilitation

Some general remarks are required about psychological rehabilitation. The view that it should be included in the assessment of moral restitution is difficult to defend. Those who suffered during the Holocaust often required psychological help. As one Swedish expert put it, “mental rehabilitation was conspicuous by its absence. No one took an interest in the traumatic experiences of the survivors, nor in their earlier history. As human beings with psychological problems they were often greeted with utter silence: people were afraid and probably also ashamed to be inquisitive and to become acquainted with them.”42

When discussing this, however, one has to realize that problems of traumas were hardly understood by professionals-both Jewish and non-Jewish-after the war. Today’s drugs are far more advanced than those available at that time. Few professionals understood then that if survivors repressed strong emotions major psychic disturbances could result in the future.

Dutch psychiatrist Jan Bastiaans, an international pioneer dealing with the psychological problems of Holocaust survivors, wrote as late as the mid-1980s: “The outside world continues to regard much psychic suffering and mental illness with little tolerance. Where today is there sufficient tolerance and under-standing for mentally disturbed beings, especially for those who are victims of man-made disasters? How many get proper psychotherapeutic help after having been in isolation, in war-time or in some other traumatizing situation?”43

A Matter of Intuition

With the recent arrival of groups of war refugees in Western Europe, interest has reemerged on how Jewish Holocaust survivors were integrated into society. Swedish psychiatrist Lilian Levin points out that, even in modern-day Sweden, “there is no inalienable right or compelling judicial law guaranteeing the rehabilitation of children traumatized and depressed by war and persecution.”44

Levin notes that psychological assistance to survivors after the war was often a matter of intuition. She cites the case of one traumatized boy, put up at a hotel, who was unable to sleep fearing terrifying nightmares. Each night he would speak in Polish to the Swedish night receptionist-who did not understand a word. The survivor later stated that the stranger’s empathy and simple willingness to listen saved him from insanity.45

There were other major categories of people who had to be psychologically rehabilitated after the war such as shell-shocked soldiers. Neither governments nor the medical profession knew how to act toward these individuals. In light of all this, it seems that “psychological rehabilitation” is not a valid criterion for the analysis of post-war moral attitudes toward the Jews in Europe.

Continued Psychological Torture

The ongoing psychological torture of the survivors in the post-war period did not only result from war traumas. Even measures meant to alleviate material suffering, opened new wounds.

In the 1950s, the German government instituted the Wiedergutmachung program. Says Israeli Holocaust psychologist Nathan Durst:

Survivors were frequently subjected to humiliating interrogations; German doctors with a Nazi background investigated them. In the 1950s West Germany was trying to rebuild itself. It needed a professionally staffed medical and judicial system. The doctors who were old enough to assume responsible positions had been Nazis, either willingly or because, as professionals, they had to join the party. Since there was no one else suitable for such positions in post-war Germany, key positions in the medical and judicial systems were filled with ex-Nazis.

How did a Nazi doctor or judge react to a Jew complaining of a dysfunction resulting from the Nazi past? By admitting that the malfunctioning of an individual was caused by what he had endured during the Nazi era, the investigator accused himself. How could one live with that? To escape this psychological bind, the former Nazis made it extremely difficult for the victims to prove that the cause of their complaint originated in the Holocaust experience. For the survivor, the person who decided whether to give him money was identified with the ones who had hit him. This was extremely painful.46

One should not underestimate the psychological problems involved in the claiming of restitution, that still have an impact today. In September 2002, Hannah M. Lessing, secretary-general of the National Fund of the Republic of Austria of Victims of National Socialism and of the General Settlement Fund said, “many people who should be filing claims are not doing so because they don’t want to relive their wartime experiences yet again. They have filled in forms for Swiss Banks, for Generali Insurance, and for other avenues of restitution-often with much pain and little or no results. They don’t want to go through it again.”47

Filing Claims and the Difficulties Involved

The difficulties which claimants confront are not restricted to psychological ones. In 1999, AFA-an international arbitration institute based in Switzerland-devoted a study day to the issue of the dormant accounts at the Swiss banks. Israeli judge Hadassa Ben-Itto, one of the Arbitrators of the Claims Resolution Tribunal (CRT) dealing with claims against these accounts, pointed out that thousands of people around the world were required to fill out complicated forms.

These claimants are asked to rummage in old cabinets, seek ancient documents, they are going through emotional upheaval, rekindling painful, sometimes unbearable memories, examining old letters and photographs, writing to authorities in other countries whose language they no longer speak, asking for old certificates from archives which sometimes no longer exist.

We arbitrators at the CRT…are striving to discover the people behind the documents, the families behind the family tree. I saw one family tree, with scores of names, where the claimant, a woman, wrote in a matter-of-fact language that she had marked in red the names of all family members who had perished in the Holocaust. There were only three names not marked in red on that family tree.48

A Psychology of Nations

The mental suffering of the survivors is one-but not the only-major psychological aspect to be evaluated when considering European attitudes towards the Jews. Nathan Durst connects European anti-Semitic outbursts with Europe’s guilt vis-à-vis the Holocaust.

Outbursts with anti-Semitic undertones are also connected to Europe’s guilt vis-à-vis the Holocaust. If the guilty person is bad, the Jewish victim becomes good. The moment it can be shown the latter is bad too, the “other”-that is, the European-is relieved of his guilt feelings. To claim that Israelis behave like Nazis reduces the sin of the grandparents. Then the children of the victims can no longer be the accusers. This equalizes everybody.49

Some Europeans thus have to claim that Jews are capable of doing what was done to them. The Portuguese author José Saramago, who paralleled Ramallah and Auschwitz, did precisely this. When one calls everything Auschwitz, you deny the Holocaust. As everything becomes terrible, there is no absolute evil anymore. This means a relief for the heirs of the guilt.50

An Austrian psychologist, Irvin Rongel, claimed the Austrians’ reaction to the attacks on their President Kurt Waldheim, in view of his war past, was extremely clinical. The entire country was forced to psychologically deal with the history it had spent so long trying to repress.51

As current anti-Semitism in Europe continues to manifest itself, the connection between it and the Holocaust, becomes more obvious also to those outside the psychological field. According to Kluger, who, in recent years, has published about the Holocaust, even in Germany which is “more sympathetic than most European countries…there is a rise in anti-Israeli sentiment as part of a growing attempt to extirpate feelings of guilt for the Holocaust.”52

On the other hand, national guilt feelings have furthered Jewish or Israeli interests on several occasions. Says Avi Beker, the Secretary-General of the World Jewish Congress: “I assume that after the war both in Norway and in France there were heavy guilt feelings among some peoples. Does it go too far to say that as a compensatory act both countries have supplied important parts of Israel’s nuclear reactor?”53 He adds that the repressed guilt feelings in Norway also played an important role in the country’s internal discussions on restitution to the Jews a few years ago.

When more attention will be given to the study of Europe’s moral attitudes versus the Jews the role of psychologists will have to be a major one. The irrational character of anti-Semitism will provide an additional impetus to this.

Communications

Another disciplinary perspective to be given due consideration when discussing European post-war attitudes toward the Jews is communications. This manifests itself in many ways. One is an analysis of which events played a crucial role in enhancing the perception of the Shoah in Western conscience. The Nuremberg trials were an important benchmark in this. A broad consensus also exists that the 1961 Eichmann trial created an unprecedented worldwide awareness of what the Holocaust had been. Likewise, individual war criminal trials affected public opinion. Thus several experts consider the prosecution of Nazi perpetrators to be meaningful and important even today despite their advanced age.

Says Efraim Zuroff, director of the Israel Office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center:

There are great educational benefits in pursuing these activities. Even if people are prosecuted and not punished, the exposure of what has happened is important. The trials have an incredible effect in terms of the lesson being taught. We helped put Dinko Sakic on trial in Croatia in 1999. He was the former commander of the Croatian concentration camp Jasenovac, also known as “the Auschwitz of the Balkans.

The Sakic trial was broadcast daily on television and was covered very extensively by the local media. It had a profound effect on Croatian society, which included many people who were naturally sympathetic to Sakic. At the same time, however, there were also thousands of people who had fought with the partisans against the Nazis and their Ustasha allies and they constituted a natural lobby for Sakic’s prosecution.54

Other milestones that catalyzed Holocaust awareness in Western society are often cited. These include movies such as the NBC television series on the Holocaust (1978), the French film director Claude Lanzmann’s documentary Shoah, and Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List.

A further milestone in worldwide communicating about the Holocaust was the restitution discussion of the late 1990s. Due to the media attention it received, the economic aspects of the Holocaust became rather central to the Western agenda. Says Beker:

The connection between confronting national myths and the progress of the restitution process can easily be proven. Dealing with concrete issues involving financial claims also documented that along the entire expropriation process, thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of local nationals in each country were profoundly involved in the foreplay of the destruction of the Jews. The same can be demonstrated with respect to governments and financial institutions.55

Restitution and Communication

Many other important communication issues concerning European moral attitudes have hardly been raised. One example of this concerns the CRT tribunal, which in recent years investigated the claims for monies in the accounts of the Swiss banks. This tribunal was established thanks to the efforts of Jewish organizations. Initially, everybody was convinced these dormant accounts belonged predominantly to Holocaust victims. It turned out, however, that most of the account holders were gentiles.56 It gradually became clear to the few in the know that the Jewish organizations had spearheaded a major action to do some justice to many non-Jews.

The restitution agreements reached by the Jewish organizations against the Swiss banks also serve as precedents for other victims to present claims. The Jews, however, suffered all the negative publicity for the initial fight.

On a much larger scale the payments to slave laborers and forced laborers have only become possible thanks to the restitution processes initiated by the Jews. Similarly in The Netherlands it was only due to the government’s need to deal with Jewish claims that the Sinti and Roma also received payments.

Israel and the Media

Many other communication-related aspects must be analyzed in the framework of study. This discipline will become increasingly important as many left-wing media and journalists continue to foster anti-Semitism by their one-sided reporting about Israel. The essence of this phenomenon has been poorly studied. Italian journalist Fiamma Nirenstein tells how almost all international journalists who come to Israel on temporary assignments stay in the American Colony hotel where the waiters and staff are Palestinians as are the regular guests. “The support crews are largely Arab, the stringers Palestinian and often the cameramen, too….An acquaintance amusedly tells me of overhearing a correspondent thanking his Palestinian source for supplying him with the precise hours of the next day’s ‘spontaneous’ clashes.”57

Nirenstein describes these journalists:

Slightly vain, many of the guests here still bask in memories of themselves at age twenty, Arab kaffias around their necks on the campuses of American or European universities: young rebels, young heroes, young upsetters of the hegemonic powers-that-be.” She points out that it is natural for them to be pro-Palestinian. “The culture of the press is almost entirely Left. These are people who feel the weakness of democratic values, their own values; who enjoy the frisson of sidling up to a threatening civilization that coddles them even while holding in disdain the system they represent.58

Other Recurrent Motifs

Since minimal research has been conducted on European countries’ moral attitudes toward Jews in the post-war period, their main characteristics cannot be analyzed Europe-wide. Yet there are some recurrent motifs, which emerge even from superficial analysis. One is that the fight for Jewish rights must be led by the Jews. There are many examples of this. In 1973 the Dutch government created a special law for support-not a pension-to war victims. Dutch resistance members, however, had already been paid pensions since 1945. This late gesture, more than 25 years after the war, meant needy survivors were no longer considered welfare cases.

The main promoter of this law was the Socialist parliamentarian Joop Voogd. Dutch political scientist Isaac Lipschits reflects: “I thought at the time it was very nice of him to fight so hard for the Jews and considered him a righteous gentile. Then I learned his mother was Jewish. I realized again that the effort to obtain justice had to be made by the Jews themselves. The same had happened with the writing of the history of the Dutch Jews during the Holocaust. All major historians who dealt with it were Jews.”59

A crucial role in the American efforts to investigate the behavior of neutral countries during the war was played by the Jewish under-secretary of Commerce for International Trade, Stuart E. Eizenstat, author of The Eizenstat Report.

Similarly, Norwegian restitution could not have reached satisfactory levels without the efforts of the Jewish community. Says former Israeli Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Michael Melchior:

Bureaucrats on the government appointed investigation commission did their best to eliminate the restitution issue as fast as possible. Public opinion however, did not allow this. A crucial role was played by the Jewish community, which did its homework and provided the correct figures. Particular credit goes to Bjarte Bruland, a non-Jewish historian who had never seen a Jew before he became interested in the subject. And to Berit Reisel who led the battle in the commission for the Jewish community. All this work and broad support in the media resulted in a public opinion that didn’t enable the bureaucrats to kill the project in an immoral way.60

Education

With the rise of extreme right-wing parties in many European countries, interest in Holocaust education is suddenly accelerating 50 years after the war. A major initiative has been taken by the Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson, who called an international conference on Holocaust education in January 2000 entitled “The Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust.” Persson was motivated by the influence of Holocaust deniers in his country and the presence of neo-Nazism among young Swedes. Many senior foreign politicians attended the conference and signed its concluding document.

Says Bauer: “Out of the Stockholm conference emerged an organization for Holocaust education, remembrance and research, which operates in many countries: Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Argentina, Uruguay and gradually others. Several of the countries whose leaders told all kinds of stories about their country’s Holocaust past at the Stockholm conference have since begun Holocaust education.”61

Bauer, however, remains cautious: “One can never be sure how far this will go. Politicians in power change. One does not know to what extent the successors of the leaders who attended the Stockholm conference will have the same interests.” He adds: “One has to be very careful to ensure alien concepts do not creep into this teaching. Universalization of the Holocaust, by extending it to many other situations is very dangerous. Only rarely is this justified.”62

Continue to Part II

*     *     *

Notes

 

1. Jonathan Sacks, “The New Anti-Semitism,” Ha’aretz, 8 September 2002.

2. “Israel-Kritik, oder Antisemitismus?” Neue Zuercher Zeitung, 26 April 2002 [German].

3. Robert Fife, “UN Promotes Systemic Hatred of Jews, MP says,” National Post, 2 April 2002.”

4. Ibid.

5. Yoav Bezalel, “Rescuing Women’s Lost Voices from the Holocaust,” Haaretz, 4 September 2002,

6. Sacks, Ha’aretz, op. cit.

7. Michael Freund, “Arab League to Participate in Holocaust Denial Symposium,” The Jerusalem Post, 28 August 2002.

8. Michael Slackman, “Arab Forum Assails Jews, 9/11 ‘Propaganda,'” Los Angeles Times, 31 August 2002.

9. Michael Slackman, “Arab States Disavow Anti-Jewish Remarks,” Los Angeles Times, 1 September 2002.

10. “Homework, Health and Environment,” Grade 7, p. 98 in “Jews, Israel and Peace in Palestinian School Textbooks 2000-2001 and 2001-2002,” p. 43, Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace Report, November 2001.

11. “Geography of Palestine,” Grade 7, p. 77, p. 43, Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace Report, November 2001.

12. James Dorsey, “Wij zijn alleen Palestijn om politieke redenen,” Trouw, 31 March 1977 [Dutch].

13. Slackman, Los Angeles Times, 31 August 2002.

14. “The Big Lie,” CBSNews.com, 4 September 2002.

15. Ibid.

16. Deborah E. Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (New York: Plume, 1994).

17. 200046701 Defamation – Libel – Ruling on meaning – Defence of justification – Defamation Act 1952 s 5 – Irving v Penguin Books Ltd & anr – Queen’s Bench Division – Gray J. – 12.04.00. Section 13.161, p. 247.

18. Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust, op. cit., p. 17.

19. Interview with Deborah Lipstadt to be published in Manfred Gerstenfeld, Anti-Semitism’s Post-Holocaust Origins.

20. “Es droht ein Bund von Rechtsradikalen und islamischen Extremisten,” Die Welt, 9 November 2001 [German].

21. Fredy Rom, “Holocaust Denier Admits Links,” JTA Global News Service of the Jewish People, 21 November 2001.

22. Ibid.

23. Anne F. Bayefsky, “Terrorism and Racism: The Aftermath of Durban,” Jerusalem Viewpoints, no. 468, 16 December 2001.

24. Michael Belling, “News Analysis: As Development Conference Ends,” JTA, Global News Service of the Jewish People, 4 September 2002.

25. Robert Fife, “UN Promotes Systemic Hatred of Jews, MP Says,” National Post, 2 April 2002.

26. Interview with Irwin Cotler to be published in Gerstenfeld, Anti-Semitism’s Post-Holocaust Origins.

27. Fife, National Post, April 2, 2002.

28. Ibid.

29. Press Release from Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, “Rise of Antisemitism in Europe Obscured by Governments’ Handling of Data,” 27 August 2002.

30. Interview with Shmuel Trigano to be published in Gerstenfeld’s forthcoming book, Anti-Semitism’s Post-Holocaust Origins.

31. Interview with Gidon Remez, Israel Radio Network B, 3 April 2000.

32. Manfred Gerstenfeld, “Wartime and Postwar Dutch Attitudes Toward the Jews: Myth and Truth,” Jerusalem Letter/Viewpoints, no. 412, 15 August 1999.

33. The author is grateful to David Bankier for making available to him his article published in this issue of JPSR.

34. Interview with David Bankier to be published in Gerstenfeld, Antisemitism’s Post-Holocaust Origins.

35. Naphtali Lau-Lavie, “In Pursuit of Justice: Recovering Looted Assets of European Jewry,” Cardozo Law Review, vol. 20, no. 2, December 1998.

36. Ibid.

37. Chaya Brasz, Removing the Yellow Badge: The Struggle for a Jewish Community in the Postwar Netherlands, 1944-1955 (Jerusalem: Institute for Research on Dutch Jewry/Ben-Zion Dinur Institute for Research on Jewish History, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1995).

38. Interview with Ronald Zweig to be published in Gerstenfeld, Anti-Semitism’s Post Holocaust Origins.

39. Pieter Lagrou, The Legacy of Nazi Occupation: Patriotic Memory and National Recovery in Western Europe, 1945-1965 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

40. Pieter Lagrou, “Return to a Vanished World: European Societies and the Remnants of their Jewish Communities, 1945-1947,” Background paper for Yad Vashem Symposium, 2000.

41. Yehuda Bauer, “Delegitimization of the Jews from Today’s Perspective,” lecture at First Herbert Berman Memorial Symposium, on “Defamation and Moral Compensation: The Holocaust and Today,” 22 November 2001.

42. H. Fried, Café 84, “Experiences from a Ten Years’ Activity with Survivors from the Holocaust and their Children,” Socialmedicinsk tidskrift, vol. 73, 1996, pp. 408-11 [Swedish]. As quoted in Lilian Levin, “Traumatized Refugee Children: A Challenge for Mental Rehabilitation,” Medicine, Conflict and Survival, vol. 15, 1999, p. 343.

43. Jan Bastiaans, “Isolation and Liberation” in: Jozeph Michman, ed., Dutch Jewish History, vol. 2. Proceedings of the Fourth Symposium on the History of the Jews in the Netherlands, 7-10 December, Tel Aviv-Jerusalem, 1986 (Jerusalem: The Institute for Research on Dutch Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem/ Maastricht: Van Gorcum, Assen, 1989), pp. 296-97.

44. Levin, Medicine, Conflict and Survival, op. cit., p. 346.

45. Ibid., p. 344.

46. Interview with Nathan Durst to be published in Gerstenfeld, Anti-Semitism’s Post-Holocaust Origins.

47. Greer Fay Cashman, “Austrian Fund Aids Survivors of Nazi Persecution,” The Jerusalem Post, 31 August 2002.

48. Hadassa Ben-Itto, Introductory Remarks to the Panel on Jurisdiction of the CRT and different types of procedures, AFA Study Day, 1999.

49. Interview with Nathan Durst to be published in Gerstenfeld, Anti-Semitism’s Post-Holocaust Origins.

50. Ibid.

51. Avi Beker, Introductory article, “Unmasking National Myths,” p. 21, Avi Beker (ed.), The Plunder of Jewish Property During the Holocaust: Confronting European History (Hampshire: Palgrave, 2001).

52. Yoav Bezalel, “Rescuing Women’s Lost Voices from the Holocaust,” Ha’aretz, 4 September 2002.

53. Interview with Avi Beker to be published in Gerstenfeld, Anti-Semitism’s Post-Holocaust Origins.

54. Interview with Efraim Zuroff to be published in Gerstenfeld, Anti-Semitism’s Post-Holocaust Origins.

55. Interview with Avi Beker to be published in Manfred Gerstenfeld, Anti-Semitism’s Post-Holocaust Origins.

56. Hadassa Ben-Itto. “Defamation and Moral Compensation: The Holocaust and Today,” lecture at First Herbert Berman Memorial Symposium, 22 November 2001.

57. Fiamma Nirenstein, “The Journalist & the Palestinians,” Commentary, January 2001.

58. Ibid.

59. Interview with Isaac Lipschits to be published in Gerstenfeld, Anti-Semitism’s Post-Holocaust Origins.

60. Interview with Michael Melchior to be published in Gerstenfeld, Anti-Semitism’s Post-Holocaust Origins.

61. Interview with Yehuda Bauer to be published in Gerstenfeld, Anti-Semitism’s Post-Holocaust Origins.

62. Ibid.