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SECOND GENERATION
L O S A N G E LES
Sons and Daughters of Jewish Holocaust Survivors
email: 2ndGen@imeg.com
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G2 Newsletter
Volume, 15, Number 3
Elul/Tishrei 5758/5759
September 1998
PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
"... Together these gestures significantly revise our concepts of culpability; they make our assessment of blame more complex, more developed, and more subtle. Rather than viewing the Shoah as the action of simply one man, it becomes the implementation of many..."
In a sudden flurry of activity, Swiss banks and European insurance firms are settling claims with survivors of the Shoah. By the end of the decade, significant concessions will have been made by private institutions and governmental organizations which attempt, monetarily, to compensate survivors for material losses they sustained as a result of the Nazi genocide. The resolution of these claims is a deliberate, but rather late, gesture designed to favorably respond to charges of collateral responsibility for the destruction of European Jewry. But the gesture, aroused by the court of public opinion, is very significant and deserves some reflection.
I must admit that several years ago, when the Austrian government offered some sort of restitution to its former, surviving Jewish citizens, I viewed the gesture with a great deal of cynicism. Those who most deserved compensation had died, and those who had survived incarceration, or who had emigrated, were few and elderly. The decision to initiate payments, although just, came too late to make a significant impact on the life of the beneficiary or to be sufficiently painful for the Austrians. But in the light of the recent Swiss debacle, I recognize the Austrian gesture as more telling, for it was an acknowledgment, however sluggish, of collateral responsibility. The Austrian government, in assigning a single payment of $7000, recognized the material connection between the action of its people during the Nazi era, and the consequences over a lifetime for its former Jewish citizenry. It will be far more difficult, once the gesture is made, to claim that the alpine nation was the first victim of National Socialism, nor will it be possible to say that its people bore no responsibility for the overthrow of the Schuschnig government and the annexation to Nazi Germany. The relatively soft-spoken gesture of restitution opens the door for a (belated) reappraisal of the Austrian participation in the implementation of forced emigration, theft, vandalism, and ultimately genocide.
The public debate over Swiss responsibility has been marked by rancor from the start. Begun before the end of the Second World War, the assessment of Swiss financial liability lay dormant for decades only to be revived a year ago by a confluence of loud voices including the World Jewish Conference, United States Senator D'Amato, and others such as British MP Lord Janner. Although never far from the minds of Holocaust Survivors who saw their families holdings disappear into cold, supposedly disinterested financial institutions, the general public did not know a thing about the complex relationships between private banks, "neutral" governments, and Nazi Germany. But of course, in retrospect, the occupation of Europe, a two-front war effort, and a policy of displacement and annihilation required an intricate system of financial backing. Precisely because it had maintained a position of military neutrality, Switzerland, unlike Austria, cannot easily concede collateral responsibility on the part of its government, its citizens, or its private institutions. And the recent concession has not it any way altered the view of many Swiss that their country was twice a victim- first of the Germans, and now, of public opinion. But in the light of fifty years' evidence, the Swiss will also begin to ask questions as historians begin to grapple with issues of corporate and personal responsibility, and what their country concealed in terms of direct theft and its relationship with evil.
And now, the final chapter, in terms of financial compensation, is expected to come from the private sector. The insurance companies which never acknowledged responsibility to its policy holders and beneficiaries, will now, under threat of public sanction, also make a gesture of compensation. Together, these gestures significantly revise our concepts of culpability; they make our assessment of blame more complex, more developed, and more subtle. Rather than viewing the Shoah as the action of simply one man, it becomes the implementation of many, of "neutral" governments, of dispassionate corporations, of enthusiastic and misguided "little" people, and of silent bystanders, who probably never really were bystanders to begin with.
Why has it taken so long, over fifty years, two generations, for the world to begin to see the complex relationships required of governments to participate in so much evil? Perhaps because governments, corporations, banks, and industry are people, and people come late to awareness. As one who has himself, in personal matters, always been late, it appears that we have difficulty acknowledging failure and weakness by design. We come to acknowledge responsibility relatively late because it serves us to be late. It serves us, even in the little things, to delay self-assessment and "move on."
I shall no longer look on the gestures of the Austrian government, the enlightened among the Swiss, or others as cynically as I once did, for their gestures are irrevocable. They cannot hope to address human claims beyond all proportion, nor do they provide satisfaction to those who suffered, but to the initiated, these gestures change everything, even if given in anger. For they reinforce the concept of parallel responsibility, one human being for another, and they suggest that any institution or government which gives comfort to evil will itself be judged harshly. Perhaps the same will one day be said for the "innocent bystander", the one who observes but is unmoved.
-Gary Schiller, M.D.
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