Urgent conferences on the latest Iron Curtain developments affecting Jews will-be held in Jerusalem this week between members of the Israel Government and leaders of the World Zionist Organization which has been the target of Moscow’s attack, Dr. Nahum Goldmann, chairman of the Jewish Agency and president of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, announced on his departure yesterday for Europe and Israel.
Dr. Nahum Goldmann’s first stopover will be Bonn, where he will meet with Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and other members of the West German Government to discuss the Israel-Bonn reparations treaty and the early delivery of goods to Israel under this agreement. The agreement, signed last September, provides that Germany is to deliver to Israel goods in the amount of $822,000,000 as partial compensation for the material losses suffered by the Jewish people under the Nazi regime.
“The latest events behind the Iron Curtain carry implications of the most grave nature for a large remnant of the surviving Jewish people in Europe, ” Dr. Goldmann declared. “The Moscow allegations, the Prague trial, the incessant press campaign in all Iron Curtain countries have evoked the greatest anxiety among Jews everywhere, Jewish leadership throughout the world is now deliberating on steps that may be taken to arrest this campaign, to bring to bear upon the Communist world the feelings of moral indignation and outrage over the recent development and to outline all possible measures for bringing relief to our imperilled brethren.
“The Jewish Agency has been in constant consultation on this issue with the Government of Israel and with Jewish groups in this country and Jewish communities throughout the free world,” Dr. Goldmann continued. “The Jewish Agency at a meeting in New York City last Friday decided that I should proceed to Israel to consider this emergency with the Israel Cabinet.”
AGENCY SURVEYS EAST GERMAN PRESS ON BONN-ISRAEL PACT
The Jewish Agency made public today a survey of East German press opinion showing that the East German Communist Government is engaged in a last ditch campaign against the Bonn-Israel settlement. The Agency believes that this campaign is obviously aimed in two main directions: To curry favor with Nazi and other anti-Semitic elements in Eastern and Western Germany by attacks on the Luxemburg agreement; to-woo the Arab states, particularly Egypt, with grandiose offers of trade. Another aim of the campaign is to smokescreen East Germany’s refusal to restore or make compensation for Aryanized Jewish property inherited from the Hitler regime.
The Berliner Zeitung, published in East Berlin, claims: “The possibilities of East Germany’s trade with the Arab counties are by far not exhausted. The Arabs can be wooed. East Germany can import and export many goods in addition to those already traded with the Near East.”
Neues Deutschland, Communist Party organ in East Berlin, wrote: “The German-Israel agreement is a business deal between West German and Israeli big business. They want to secure high profit markets for themselves for years to come. The financial burden… will be borne by the working masses whose tax pennies it will extract… This dirty deal will benefit not only Israeli and West German big business but the American imperialists who stand behind it.”
The Maerkische Volkstlmme, of Potsdam, wrote: The restitution agreement with West German monopoly capitalists was engineered by the Americans in order to help the Israel bourgeoise and to make the Adenauer state and the West German Nazis acceptable for inclusion in the framework of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The agreement makes it possible for the big capitalists of Israel to erect armament plants. The whole scheme is an unspeakable betrayal of the Israeli people.”
The Taeglische Rundzchau, of East Berlin, wrote: “German and U.S. monopolists instigated and favored the Israel agreements at the cost of the people. Now they see their business with the Near East threatened.”
The tenor of East Germany’s press campaign is echoed in the extremist press of West Germany. However, the West German press, by and large, re-affirms the Government’s moral obligation to stand by the Luxemburg agreements.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
