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The
first memory Dr. Israel Singer, Secretary General of the World
Jewish Congress, Chief Negotiator of the World Jewish
Restitution Organization, Member of the Volcker Commission and
the new Vice-Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council, has of the
Holocaust, was as a 3 year old child in his family kitchen in
Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “My grandmother, who also survived
miraculously, was lighting 113 candles on this small table, on
Hoshana Rabbah. I asked why she was making such a big
fire and she said that the fire is for all the relatives in
our family who were killed on that day, in their town, Galicia.
All these children, brothers, sisters – 113 people. So I
always felt that the Holocaust was a kitchen table with 113
candles, that was my first association.
Singer’s
parents had been issued exit visas by the Chinese Consul
General in Vienna, Dr. Ho Fengshan: “Their idea was to move
west, and keep moving, and eventually they travelled to France
and then to the US. They escaped and that is how I am alive. I
don’t forget that I could have been one of those candles.
But I don’t live with terror, anger or vengeance, but with a
lot of memory because as a small child the first thing I
remember was not a Jewish holiday or a Seder…but this
table with the candles.”
The
Holocaust was always a very open issue in Singer’s
household. His parents never repressed their Holocaust
memories, always talking to their young son about their
experiences in WWII Europe, unlike the parents of many of his
classmates, many of whom had gone through the camps.
“My
parents, for a period of three years were actually saving as
many of my family’s relatives as they could, and got them to
America. They have absolutely no guilt whatsoever with regard
to WWII because they were actually very active at the
beginning of and during the war, when they were involved in
saving people’s lives, and not just themselves. I believe
that most of my friends’ parents didn’t tell their
children because they unnecessarily felt guilty or were
embarrassed about their survival.”
In
the last ten years around 15 million American documents have
come to light in the quest for the truth about what happened
in the Holocaust. Singer sees as important the work which the scholars will
carry out over the next fifty years - investigatory work to
ensure that the whole truth is exposed.
His overriding interest, however, is in discovering why
European Jewry was abandoned.
Singer
believes that the Holocaust is a subjective, rather
than an objective story and it is therefore the obligation of
the Jewish people to tell it - not that of the Germans,
Americans, or other groups, who inevitably recall events from
their own perspectives.
He
feels that the Holocaust is a continuum of Jewish history, as
Jews have to learn how to defend themselves. Consequently, the
State of Israel is very important as a safe-haven for Jews in
danger while it protects those in the Diaspora. As the head of
a political organization, he says that his struggle for
restitution is not about the past but about the present and
the future, to enable Jews to realise their identity. Money
for him is not the issue. “It is not about Jewish people
getting back their material goods (with the exception of the
72,000 pensioners for whom I negotiated pensions in the last
five years, giving them a more dignified way of life). It is
about the Jewish people getting back their History. It is
about finding out what happened and telling the truth.”
For
the World Jewish Congress, one of Dr. Singer’s most
important tasks was saving Soviet Jewry: “It was an
opportunity to make sure that in this generation we are not
going to make the same mistakes we made in the last. We wanted
to show people that we weren’t going to be victims, and that
we were not going to allow other people to make us victims.”
Within the framework of his WJC activity his was the first
official visit by a representative of an international Jewish
organisation to the Former Soviet Union, where he negotiated
with the highest authorities in Moscow and was instrumental in
the release of well-known Prisoners of Zion.
Dr.
Singer was recently named a vice-chairman of the Yad Vashem
Council. Although Yad Vashem’s home is in Israel, he feels
it is also important to give the organization a non-Israeli
orientation. “The Jewish people who live outside Israel also
have a role in Yad Vashem. They, too, deal with the tragedy
which affected the Jewish people, not just the Jewish people
living in Israel. I plan to add various aspects, such as to
take all the documents existing outside of Israel and bring at
least a copy to Yad Vashem, where over 55 million documents
are stored in its archives. This will make Yad Vashem the home
of the history of the Jewish people’s history. The Holocaust
was a Jewish event, about ideologically killing Jews, and this
needs to be told by Jews. We need to protect the unique
telling of this history from a Jewish perspective and that’s
what I would like to do from the Diaspora. We have documents
not yet acquired by Israel and I have a galut
perspective on how to get them. I hope to be the
representative of the Jews, on the Yad Vashem Council, who
thinks like Jews in Israel, but still lives in the
Diaspora.”
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