Language:
English
Year of publication:
2011
Titel der Quelle:
Dapim; Studies on the Shoah
Angaben zur Quelle:
25 (2011) 65-127
Keywords:
Siegel, Julius
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) History
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Influence
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Jews
Abstract:
During World War II Julius Siegel, born in 1895, served the Nazis in a number of capacities. As a member of the Judenrat of Będzin, Poland, he was responsible for mobilizing Jews for forced labor; later he was a "Jewish elder" in several labor camps in Germany, was employed as a clerk in Auschwitz, etc. Siegel was indicted on four separate occasions for his deeds against other Jews in these capacities. Examines two of the four legal proceedings against Siegel: that which began in the Cremona DP camp in Italy in 1946 and was transferred to Milan; and the District Court trial held in Tel Aviv in 1953 in accordance with the newly passed Nazis and Nazi Collaborators Law (1950). The trial by the DP "social court", which did not use proper judicial procedures and could only mete out a punishment of a social nature, and that in Tel Aviv have many similarities. E.g. both indicted Siegel as a traitor to the Jewish people; portrayed him as a rational actor who chose to collaborate with the Nazis on his own volition, without taking into account his complex status as a victim (Siegel lost his family in Auschwitz) and a perpetrator simultaneously; and focused on his "German" behavior and even on his wartime appearance. The Tel Aviv court found difficulties in the application of the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators Law in this case and could only sentence Siegel to a ten-day prison term for beating one of the witnesses. Argues that all the trials against Siegel pursued the aim of purification of the Jewish community of a traitor in accordance with the Jewish traditional "law of the traitors". The Nazis and Nazi Collaborators Law enacted in the State of Israel in fact represents Jewish communal codes of conduct in the guise of a state law.
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