INFORMATION Issufd by the Assocunoh of JIWISH RBUSBS U SREAT BRITAIII
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Volume XXXV No. 5 May 1980 INFORMATION ISSUfD BY THE ASSOCUnOH OF JIWISH RBUSBS U SREAT BRITAIII Richard Grunberger Budapest, Melbourne, London, Sao Paulo and Oslo, and a central screening office was created in Frankfurt, with Dr. Ernst G. Lowenthal as man "LESS THAN SLAVES" aging director. The Giult of German Industariallsts An applicant wbo did not know when the typhoid epidemic had broken out or where the Of the three SS ofiScers recently sentenced by a Wollheim—^and other claimants, who, encouraged latrines were located was soon disqualified. Cologne court for deporting Jews from Drancy by his initial success, had meanwhile come for Many ineligible claimants conceded that they to Auschwitz one had been mayor of a small ward—that any compensation payment would must have been mistaken and their claims were German town—in other words a Respektsperson— have to be accepted as a "goodwill gesture" rather apologetically withdrawn. right up to the day of the trial. Less Than Slaves than the "discharge of an obligation" by the firm. Detailed information was received from sur by Benjamin Ferencz* is about German Respekts- The legal battle continued. In 1956, three years prising sources. Hershel M. of Paris had en personen of a diflFerent ilk. These were in charge, after the initial Frankfurt hearing Farben agreed graved into his memory the specific tattoo niun- bers assigned to the various transports that not of a small municipality, but of huge industrial to settle "out of court". They offered 5,000 marks arrived at Buna. He knew by heart that the first corporations, with names like L G. Farben, to each claimant—2,000 marks less than the abso transport was composed of German, Austrian, Krupp, A.E.G., Siemens, Rheinmetall, etc. As lute minimum to which the Jewish claim had been and Polish Jews from Buchenwald and that they owners or directors of world-renowned firms they whittled down. all received numbers between 68,000 and 69,000. had collaborated in the exploitation of slave A year later the Claims Conference, the Jewish The next 1,000 numbers went to the second labour which was an integral part of the Nazi war body principally concerned in the negotiations, transport, which came from Sachsenhausen, and effort. Pursuing profit in the name of patriotism, became, in the author's words, "fed up with the the 1,000 after that went to the C^ech Jews they had reduced their "employees" to a state indignity of the continuing hassle about how much from Theresienstadt. described by one of the latter in the following should be paid to which Auschwitz survivors" and Was Justice Done? words: accepted the low offer. Farben finally paid compensation to 5,855 sur We were not slaves but less than slaves. True Then two things happened—each more stomach- vivors, and thc Claims Conference was able to fix we were deprived of freedom and became a turning than the other. Firstly, Farben shares its sights on other major employers of slave piece of property which our masters drove to appreciated 10 per cent in value on the German labour, such as Krupp and Siemens. Alfried work. But here all similarity with any known stock exchange. Secondly, Farben shareholders Krupp, who had been released prematurely in form of slavery ends . The machinery had to challenged the agreement, which when finally 1951, refused to accept any moral obligation to be operated with care, oiled, greased and allowed ratified contained the condition—endorsed by the compensate his surviving helots—but was eventu to rest; its life span was protected. We, on the Bundestag—that all claims had to be filed before ally pressured by John McCloy (the ex-US High other hand, were like a bit of sandpaper, which, the end of that year. Commissioner who had set him free) into making rubbed a few times, becomes useless and is This gave the Claims Conference precisely 10 payments even less generous than those of Farben. thrown away to be bumed with the garbage. months in which to elicit and scrutinise appli Siemens, who after the war had published a Mr. Ferencz comments at the end of his book cations from several thousands of survivors living history of the company skilfully obscuring their that whereas Nazi concentration camp command in 40 dififerent countries across the globe. Screen involvement in the Nazi slave labour, also settled ants were mostly tried and executed after the war, ing committees were set up in Prague, Vienna, eventually. They insisted, however, that a clause those German industrialists who took slave be written into the settlement denying any legal labourers from the camps and treated them in the or even moral obligation on their part to pay nianner described above were for the most part compensation. not even put on trial. Even those slave masters The Association of Jewish Refugees in Great Britain Rheinmetall likewise accepted no obligation who had been tried and sentenced were released by whatever, but the Claims Conference could exert Us High Commissioner John McCloy under a invites members and friends to the pressiu-e on them when they tendered for a US general act of clemency in 1951, at the height of the Korean War. GENERAL MEETING Army contract in competition wilh the Springfield The bulk of Less Than Slaves deals with the Armoury. Realising that adverse publicity could on Tuesday, July 1, at 7.45 p.m. harm their commercial interests the firm exorcised trials of the industrialists and the demand for at Hannah Karminski Honse, ••eparations made by some ex-slave workers who its discreditable past by paying compensation. The had managed to survive their "employment". 9 Adamson Road, Swiss Cottage, N.W.3 fifth and last German company to settle was The key case described in the book was one (Side Entrance) A.E.G.—the firm which under its Jewish founder brought in 1953 by Norbert Wollheim, a Buna I Emil Rathenau had given Germany pre-eminence survivor, against I. G. Farben before the district Report on AJR Activities in the electrical industry a few generations earlier. Court at Frankfurt. (During the war, incidentally, Treasurer's Report It is estimated that, in all, about 200 German the manager of the Buna synthetic rubber factory Discussion companies had made use of slave labour during the war. The fact that five of them—admittedly at Auschwitz had objected to the public beatings Election of Executive and Board S'ven to Jewish slave workers. He felt it demoral some of the largest—eventually paid compensation ised other workers and suggested that the SS carry The list of candidates submitted by the Executive to their surviving "employees" can thus hardly be out the beatings within the confines of the camp!) will be published in the next issue. considered meritorious, especially in view of the Members who wish to propose candidates for the At Frankfurt a witness from the Farben direc- Board should write to the General Secretary by niggardly sums involved. Jprate characterised the slave-labour camp as a the end of May. For all that, the aforementioned five companies 'convalescent home", and defence counsel argued were exemplars of virtue and charity by com that by employing the plaintifif as a slave worker n parison with the remainder. the firm had actually saved his life! RABBI HUGO GRYN One industrialist supplied a paradigm for the The court, however, had the integrity to hand Senior Rabbi of the West London Synagogue attitude of that remainder: Friedrich Flick. Flick, down a judgment stating that Farben had, at the will speak on another convicted war criminal, owned an indus ^ery least, been negligent in their treatment of the RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES IN trial empire comprising 300 firms, among them Workforce, and that the firm "cannot evade its DL\LOGUE— Dynamit Nobel and Daimler-Benz, makers of the responsibility' any more than can an individual." Opportunities and Frustrations Mercedes car. Having employed Jewish girls de Farben challenged the verdict of the Frankfurt ported from Czechoslovakia and Hungary to ^urt, and in the ensuing legal tussle informed Non-members are not entitled to vote but are welcome as guests at the meeting Auschwitz in his mimition factories, he contrived •Harvard University Press 1979, $15.00 (£9.00), 250 pp. Continued at column J, page 2 Page 2 AJR INFORMATION May 1980 Contd. from page I "LESS THAN.SLAVES" THE WORLD OF RADIO AND TV to avoid making any compensation payments It is a coimnon complaint that so many pro conclusion that to the high-ranking protectors of whatever. In 1967 he had actually agreed to pay grammes of particular interest go out on the air these criminals, who also included tiie late Car five million marks—only to renege on the agree amongst a host of indifferent material that one is dinal Spellman, it is unthinkable to hand over anti- ment on the grounds that he was "short of cash". apt to miss one of them. There have been quite Communists to their homelands now govemed by Such a shortage did not, however, prevent him a few during recent weeks which one should not communists, as anti-Communism has been the from simultaneously making gifts to his son and have missed. The most moving of them all was driving passion in post-war America. BBC2's Man Alive Programme on the quest for BBC2 showed a slightly sentimental film about daughter of sums larger than the Jewish claim. In Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who the London East End, the most interesting contn- 1968 Dynamit Nobel stated that it had "neither a saved tens of thousands of Jewish lives in Himgary bution to which—notwithstanding Arnold Wesker's legal nor a moral obligation to make payment".