A study carried out by a researcher from the Hebrew University reveals an alleged connection between the compensations for Holocaust survivors and compensations given to Germans from ethnic minorities, who took over Jewish property in Eastern and Central European countries and were deported from there at the end of World War II
Dr. Iris Nahum, who specializes in the modern history of Central Europe from the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, researches the issue of reparations for historical injustices, in the Jewish-German and domestic-German context. Her research is based on a qualitative analysis of archival material that has not yet been revealed to the public. The archive is located in the city of Bayreuth in Germany and is called the Lastenausgleichsarchiv "Burden Comparison Archive". Dr. Nahum found in it 55 files dealing with the expropriation of Jewish property in Central and Eastern Europe. In addition, the archive documents the deportation of ethnic Germans to Germany from regions in Central and Eastern Europe that were occupied or annexed by Nazi Germany and liberated after World War II.
The research shows that starting in the 50s, West Germany paid reparations, not only to Holocaust survivors, but also to ethnic German minorities, who took over Jewish property in Central and Eastern Europe, under Nazi rule. Those minorities lost their property as a result of Germany's defeat, but received compensation for the property lost as a result of their deportation. According to the study, there is a circumstantial relationship between the compensation for the Holocaust survivors and the compensation for the German deportees and it shows that many Germans were compensated by West Germany, for lost property, originally owned by Jews.
In the research, Dr. Nahum examines how the relationship was expressed in the 1952 reparations agreement between Israel and West Germany and makes a comparison between German law's treatment of an ethnic German who requested compensation for lost property that originally belonged to a Jew, compared to requests by Jews for the same property. The main findings are that the West German "compensation system" favored Holocaust survivors with a German background over Holocaust survivors without a German background. It turns out that the more an ethnic German deportee convinced the West German authorities that the Jewish property came into his hands during the Third Reich in a "proper" and "fair" manner - the more likely he was to win compensation. While not every Jewish Holocaust survivor who lost property during the Holocaust was allowed to request compensation, but only if he could prove that before the war he was part of the German people. In most cases, the compensation for the non-Jewish Germans was higher than the compensation for the Jews.
The study puts in a new light the provision of reparations to Holocaust survivors and ethnic German deportees and sheds new light on the relationship between Jews and Germans in the issue of reparations, the attitude of West German authorities to Holocaust survivors and deportees, and the involvement of ethnic Germans in the expropriation of Jewish property in Central and Eastern Europe during the Third Reich.
More of the topic in Hayadan:
- Holocaust Day: Is man's nature evil from his youth? And maybe better than his youth?
- How do you prevent phenomena like the Holocaust from happening again?
- Following a visit to the forest where my mother hid: How did the Jews live before and during the Holocaust?
- Holocaust Day: Einstein fought anti-Semitism against Eastern European Jews in Berlin
- Science, race and politics - the scientists in Nazi Germany
