Introduction Really, 'Human Dust'?
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Notes INTRODUCTION 1. Peck, The Lost Heritage of the Holocaust Survivors, Gesher, 106 (1982) p.107. 2. For 'Herut's' place in this matter, see H. T. Yablonka, 'The Commander of the Yizkor Order, Herut, Shoa and Survivors', in I. Troen and N. Lucas (eds.) Israel the First Decade, New York: SUNY Press, 1995. 3. Heller, On Struggling for Nationhood, p. 66. 4. Z. Mankowitz, Zionism and the Holocaust Survivors; Y. Gutman and A. Drechsler (eds.) She'erit Haplita, 1944-1948. Proceedings of the Sixth Yad Vas hem International Historical Conference, Jerusalem 1991, pp. 189-90. 5. Proudfoot, 'European Refugees', pp. 238-9, 339-41; Grossman, The Exiles, pp. 10-11. 6. Gutman, Jews in Poland, pp. 65-103. 7. Dinnerstein, America and the Survivors, pp. 39-71. 8. Slutsky, Annals of the Haganah, B, p. 1114. 9. Heller The Struggle for the Jewish State, pp. 82-5. 10. Bauer, Survivors; Tsemerion, Holocaust Survivors Press. 11. Mankowitz, op. cit., p. 190. REALLY, 'HUMAN DUST'? 1. Many of the sources posed problems concerning numerical data on immi gration, especially for the months leading up to the end of the British Mandate, January-April 1948, and the first few months of the state, May August 1948. The researchers point out that 7,574 immigrant data cards are missing from the records and believe this to be due to the 'circumstances of the times'. Records are complete from September 1948 onward, and an important population census was held in November 1948. A parallel record ing system conducted by the Jewish Agency, which continued to operate after that of the Mandatory Government, provided us with statistical data for immigration during 1948-9 and made it possible to analyse the part taken by the Holocaust survivors. 2. Sikron, in Immigration into Israel, A, p. 82, declares specifically that all the systems of categorization used by the Israeli authorities until the end of 1949 were flawed. Also: 'The report of the Zionist Federation and the Jewish Agency on activity for the years 1947-51', presented to the 23rd Zionist Congress in Jerusalem 1951. 3. Statistics on age were taken from the following sources: Gil, Immigrants' Settlements, p. 13; Dvorsetsky, The Holocaust Survivors, pp. 83-115; Annual Statistical Report, 1950, p. 19: Sikron, pp. 46-7. 279 280 Survivors of the Holocaust 4. Statistics from Sikron, part B - Statistical Addition, Special Publications series, no. 60, Central Bureau of Statistics, 1957, table 63A, p. 53; popu lation census, 8 November 1948; Special Publications, no. 53, Central Bureau of Statistics, 1957, vol. B, p. 57. 5. Sikron, p. 78, table 9; significantly, a family of two, in these records, consists of a husband and wife. 6. Dvorsetsky, The Holocaust Survivors, pp. 89-90, based on the paper: 'The Vital Statistics of the Jewish Population in the American Zone in Germany'. published by the Joint Medical Committee. 7. Dvorsetsky, p. 86; Immigration to Israel, 1948-1972, Special Publications series, no. 416, the Central Bureau of Statistics, Jerusalem, 1973, p. 56. 8. Grossman, The Jewish DP Problem, p. 18. 9. Based on Sikron, Immigration to Israel, A, pp. 82-95; Sikron, The Mass Immigration, p. 40; M. Dvorsetsky, 'Immigration from Europe, after the the Holocaust - biosociological problems' in The Diaspora, 2 (1960), pp. 75-91. 10. See Grossman, The Jewish DP Problem, pp. 18-19. 11. Manpower Review, June 1954, Special Publications, no. 56, Central Bureau of Statistics, 1957, p. 13; civilian manpower consisted of all citizens over the age of 14, who were categorized as employed or unemployed. 12. From Annual Statistics, no. 6 (1955) CBS, pp. 41-3; numbers relate to nationals who left and had not returned by the end of 1952, excluding diplomats and students. See also: Bachi, The Demographic Development, p.382. 13. Dvorsetsky, Demographic Problems, pp. 27, 28 shows reservation by say ing that care should be taken in accepting his conclusions on emigration, since significant differences exist between the number of immigrants who declared their intention to leave the country and those who actually did, whose number is greater. 14. Sha'ari, Detention in Cyprus, p. 38; both Sha'ari and Dvorsetsky defined the group of Holocaust survivors as they are defined in this book. 15. Report of the Committee convened by the Jewish Agency on the problem of emigration, 6 July 1955, Labour Archive (LA), 443, IV, Immigration Department. 16. Summing-up report on causes of emigration from Israel, compiled by the Department of Sociology, under Professor Shmuel Eisenstadt and Dr Yonina Graber Talmon, October 1959, JAA, Department of Immigra tion, Container 2, serial no. 20. 17. Bachi, Demographic Development, p. 383, of the emigrants, who were native-born Israelis, many were the children of new immigrants from various countries, so that assessments regarding different countries are lower than they are in reality. The difference between column 3 and col umn 4 concerns years, where details are available for 1948-51 on all the emigrants, while for the years 1952, and July-December 1953 and 1954, details are available only for those who had declared that they were leaving for good. 18. Letter from Dr Golden to the Director General of the Ministry of the Interior, 3 December 1953, National Archives (NA), Interior, G2243; letter from the Director General of the Foreign Ministry, G. Eitan, to the Minstry Notes 281 of Immigration, to the Director General of the Minister of Defence, the Department of Foreign Currency, the Ministry of Finance, 19 August 1950, NA, Foreign Affairs, Al2397/20. Same file contains more letters in this vein: Report to V. Eitan, 11 April 1948, NA, Exterior, 2533; 23; report of a further meeting with Zeinman. 6 August 1948; from the East European Department in the Israeli Consulate in Prague to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 3 May 1949, NA, Exterior, A/2503/5. The file contains more letters on this. 19. A letter from Mr Pladt to the newspaper, Yediot Aharonot dated 15 February 1954, NA, Department 105, file 51: The unfortunate problem of emigration stems from the fact that not enough attention is paid to elderly and old people who lost the foundations of their existence during the Nazi occupation. These people sometimes find themselves facing the harsh reality of starvation, or reaching a decision on leaving the country.' 20. Letter from the Director General of the Foreign Ministry to the Ministry of Defence: 'most of the people want to return to Hungary because they claim that what was left of their families stayed there and that there is no possibility of their being reunited with them unless they return to Hungary' (original emphasis). I would point out that this claim was received in Israel with a certain reserve and considered to be propaganda put out by the Hungarian Consulate, who, according to the Foreign Ministry, used emo tional pressure to persuade the emigration authorities to permit free emigration from Israel. None the less, in an interview with Andrash Mezei, a Hungrian Jewish writer, at his home in Budapest on 24 August 1986, he claimed that the main reason for his return to Hungary in 1950 after having come to live in Israel in 1948, had been his desire to return to his mother. 21. See letter from Dr Yehushua Grinbaum to the Consular Section in the Foreign Ministry, NA, Foreign 2533/33: 're: Dr Max Zeinman, Many Jews are returning to Austria'. As for the emigrants to Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Austria, who asked to return to their countries of origin, it should be pointed out that these did not mostly pass through the displaced persons camps in Europe ~ a way-station which included something of a declara tion regarding their severance from their motherland. They can therefore be seen as ordinary emigrants, disappointed by their new countries and deciding to return to their original one. Those going to Romania and Poland, for example, wanted to leave Israel and emigrate to countries other than their countries of origin. They were mostly immigrants who had spent considerable time in DP camps. No data exist, to confirm this claim, but it merits a thorough review. 2 OLD REFUGEES AND NEW REFUGEES 1. Ben-Gurion's diary, 21 April 1949, Ben-Gurion Archives (BGA); Murphy, The Refugees in Israel, p. 164, gives 140,000 as the number of settlers in the abandoned places; Aron Zisling sums up the way in which the immigrants were integrated in the abandoned towns and villages as being 'a shameful dis grace', an answer to Ben-Gurion for his offhand attitude to the contribution 282 Survivors of the Holocaust made by the kibbutzim to this integration, Hashomer Hatzair Archives 31190(1). His numbers, which relate to the period between 15 May 1948 and 1 December 1949 are similar to Murphy's - 139,521 (Jaffa - 45,527; Haifa - 39,200; Acre - 4,396; Zefat - 2,213; Ramleh - 9,150; other towns - 14,199; abandoned villages and townships - 13,469; immigrant moshavim in abandoned villages - 11,357). 2. Gil, Settling the Immigrants, p. 74. 3. Ibid., pp. 41-81. 4. Zionist Executive Committee meeting, 23 August 1948, spoken by Moshe Shapira, Central Zionist Archives (CZA) in Jerusalem. 5. Lufban, A Man Leaves, p. 119. For further confirmation of the lack of planning in the abandoned towns, settlements, see Yitzhak Koren's speech to the Histadrut Council 10-12 August 1948, LA, Councils: Eizenstadt, Immigrant Integration, p. 30; 'Not a single urban concentration was blessed with any kind of preliminary overall planning programme, which would attempt to suit the type of population in hand to the economic possibilities of the town and its surrounds.' 6.