Demand by Chaim Weizmann for
Remedy & Reparations to
Nazi Germany Holocaust
Memorandum from Chaim Weizmann demanding Reparations
Historical Documents – Office of the Historian
Historical Documents – Office of the Historian (state.gov)
Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1945, European Advisory Commission, Austria, Germany, Volume III
740.00119 EW/9–2045
The President of the Jewish Agency for Palestine (Chaim Weizmann) to the Secretary of State
London, 20 September, 1945.
Sir: On behalf of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, I have the honour to submit the following representations, for the consideration of the Government of the United States, regarding the reparations due to the Jewish people from Germany and her allies.
- The problem of requiring Germany and her satellites, in the measure of the practicable, to make good the losses they have inflicted on the nations and individuals they have assailed and despoiled, is engaging the consideration of the United Nations. The Jewish Agency for Palestine, as the representative of the Jewish people, desires to draw attention to that aspect of the problem which affects the Jewish people, and in particular to their relation to Palestine.
- The first declaration of war by Germany (and subsequently by her associates) was made against the Jewish people, and it took a special form. Its aim was not conquest and enslavement, but the complete physical extermination of the Jews, the utter destruction of their spiritual and religious heritage, and the confiscation of all their material possessions. In executing their declarations of war, Germany and her associates murdered some 6,000,000 Jews, destroyed all Jewish communal institutions wherever their authority extended, stole all the treasures of Jewish art and learning, and seized all Jewish property, public and private, on which they could lay their hands. It has been estimated that the monetary value of the material losses thus inflicted upon the Jewish people may amount to over £2,000,000,000. The mass murders, the human suffering, the annihilation of spiritual, intellectual, and creative forces, are probably without parallel in the history of mankind.
This war against the Jews has created a three-fold problem—of reparation, of rehabilitation, and of restitution.
- The problem of restitution embraces the buildings, plant, equipment, money, securities and valuables of various kinds taken from Jewish institutions and individuals, as well as Jewish cultural, literary, and artistic treasures. In so far as the owners, whether institutions or individuals, have survived or left successors, their claims to restitution must rest upon the same footing as the claims of citizens of the United Nations, and should be treated on the basis of equal rights.
- But many of the institutions have been swept away, and will never be restored, while considerable numbers of Jews have been murdered and left no heirs. Much Jewish property was deposited in non-enemy countries, and the owners have disappeared, leaving no successors. It should need no argument to prove that property by crime rendered masterless should not be treated as bona vacantia, and fall to the governments which committed the crimes, or to any other governments, or to strangers having no title to it. It is submitted that the provisions for heirless property falling to the State were not designed to cover the case of mass-murder of a people. Such properties belong to the victim, and that victim is the Jewish people as a whole. The true heir, therefore, is the Jewish people, and those properties should be transferred to the representative of the Jewish people, to be employed in the material, spiritual and cultural rehabilitation of the Jews. A separate memorandum on the subjects of restitution and indemnification will in due course be submitted jointly by the Jewish Agency for Palestine
and other Jewish organisations. In what follows, the Jewish Agency proposes to concentrate on the inter-connected problems of reparation and rehabilitation.
- Of the surviving Jews of the European Continent, some may desire to settle in their countries of origin, and some to seek a new life in other countries of the Diaspora, but the vast majority desire to make their permanent home in Palestine. Such assets as may be recovered by way of indemnification, under paragraph 6 above, for property confiscated or destroyed, or deposited and rendered available by the extinction of ownership, for the several purposes of Jewish rehabilitation should be applied to all these tasks. In so far as they are applied to the settlement of Jews in Palestine, they should be placed under the trusteeship of the Jewish Agency for Palestine.
- But the means likely to be derived from this source will fall far short of what is needed for the rehabilitation of Jews anxious to settle in Palestine. The main part of the funds for this purpose should, in justice, be provided from the reparations due from the enemy states for the infinitude of murder, suffering and destruction which they have inflicted on the Jewish people. The principle of reparation, within the limits of practicability, has been accepted as just by the United Nations, and the Jewish people invoke it in full confidence that their claim calls for special recognition, as it is not covered by the present plan for the distribution of reparations, in which only States are to be the beneficiaries. The specific claim on behalf of the Jewish people is put forward in view of the moral obligation resting upon the United Nations to use their best endeavours to solve the problems created by Germany’s war of aggression, one of which is the Jewish problem as it presents itself to-day in large parts of Europe. That the United Nations are mindful of their responsibility for assuming the collective protection of the victims of racial and religious persecution is shown by numerous resolutions of UNRRA,60 by the agreement of the Four Powers on war crimes,61 and to some extent also by the Statute of the Inter-Governmental Committee for Assistance to Refugees.62
- It is therefore submitted that a proper percentage of the reparations to be obtained from Germany should be allotted for the purpose of the resettlement in Palestine of Jewish victims of racial and religious persecution, and granted, in the form of suitable assets (e.g. plant, machinery, equipment, and materials), to the Jewish Agency for Palestine, as the body charged by international authority with the duty of developing the Jewish National Home.
- Included in the general question of reparations is the specific problem of the German Colony in Palestine, which since 1933 has embraced the Nazi doctrines. The Jewish Agency has already represented to His Majesty’s Government that the members of this Colony should not, on release from internment, be allowed to reside in Palestine, but should be returned to Germany, and that their property should form part of the reparations due by Germany to the Jewish people.
- The Jewish Agency for Palestine therefore makes the following submissions:
- That with regard to the problem of Jewish property forming the subject-matter of indemnification and restitution, in so far as the individual or communal owners of such property cannot be traced, the title should pass to the representatives of the Jewish people, the realisable assets to be employed for the rehabilitation of Jewish men, women, and children.
- That in so far as such assets are to be employed in rehabilitating in Palestine the Jewish victims of racial and religious persecution, they should be entrusted to the Jewish Agency for this purpose.
- That the Jewish people should be allotted a proper percentage of reparations, to be entrusted to the Jewish Agency for Palestine for the rehabilitation and resettlement in Palestine of Jewish victims of racial and religious persecution.
- That the Jewish people’s share of reparations should include the assets of German Colonists in Palestine.
- Similar letters are being submitted to the British Government, and to the Governments of the U.S.S.E. and France.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
Ch. Weizmann