Palestine During the Holocaust

During WWII the Nazi’s used their position of power to orchestrate a horrifying genocide of the European Jewish population – the Holocaust. In Tom Segev’s article The Streets Are Paved with Money, he takes a look at the relationship between Palestine (a country with a significant Jewish presence) and Nazi controlled Germany during this time. In  Segev’s article, he notes how the Nazi’s had raised their flag above the German consulate in Jerusalem (and successfully kept it up for 6 of their 12 years in power) and the political response to the Nazi’s rise to power. In Palestine, those leaning left on the political spectrum saw the Nazi’s as the horrible monsters that they were, but had no qualm with the German people as a whole. Meanwhile, more right leaning Palestinians were angry with the entirety of Germany. As said by Revisionist leader Jabotinsky, “Seventeen million people-the number who voted for Hitler-are more than a minor party”, it really was a pervasive thought among the German people that the Jew’s were responsible for their problems and should be made to pay.

Interestingly, despite the contempt held by the Palestinians towards the Nazi’s/Germans, commerce and other relations between the two continued pretty much uninterrupted during the Nazi’s reign. “Such demonstrations aside, though, Nazi Germany’s ties with Palestine proceeded normally through the prewar years. — German Government officials also visited including Wilhelm Frick, Hitler’s minister of the interior, who passed through Jerusalem on his honeymoon” (Segev, p. 16) This quote clearly demonstrates an, in my opinion, surprisingly civil relationship between the two nations, even allowing a major Nazi figurehead pass straight through Jerusalem unopposed. This I believe must have been due to the British control over Palestine, but it still surprised me that the people would allow such a thing to happen.

Segev goes on to talk about other surprisingly cooperative efforts, such as negotiations between Jewish Agencies and Nazi immigration Agents (p. 29) or a long form visit to Palestine from a Nazi engineer/journalist who’s writing after his visit were highly sympathetic towards Zionist (p. 30). In another article written by Meir Litvak and Esther Webman, Perceptions of the Holocaust in Palestinian Public Discourse, a rather different outlook is applied, with Litvak and Webman highlighting how Palestinian leaders would diminish the holocaust with ambiguous terms or worse, claim that Zionists were exploiting the situation European Jews found themselves only to further their own agenda. The article goes on to explain how the Palestinians considered themselves victims of Zionism (p. 125), and that some even tried to deny the existance of the holocaust.

I find it interesting how different historians frame events so differently. Segev has a relatively positive view, choosing to highlight the cooperation between enemies and feelings of sympathy towards Jews, while Litvak and Webman chose to delve deeper into the ugly truths of the situation in Palestine. Does this mean Segev was being misleading? I don’t believe it does personally, as his lens being more positive doesn’t necessarily mean he’s hiding anything from the reader. I also would never argue that Litvak and Webman are being overly negative in their article, as they seem to simply be saying it as it is from their point of view. The fact that both articles filled with truths can paint a very different picture is intriguing, and shows that even though some history may feel solved or widely understood, having a fresh look on something can always yield new results.