The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

70 years later

2022-01-28T13:53:31.081Z


The legal world is dealing with the trauma of the Holocaust, artists are mobilizing to document life in the country, and an ad for a sock repair shop in Tel Aviv is offering customers "one free eye" • This is what happened this week seven decades ago


The "capo" trials have begun in Israel

With the establishment of the State of Israel and the opening of its gates to aliyah, Jews who had served the Nazis in the positions of "capo" (from Italian: the head) in the concentration camps in Europe during the Holocaust also arrived in Israel.

These Jews were ordered by the SS to take care in any way their orders were carried out, while humiliating and harming the prisoners - as part of the terror regime imposed by the Nazis in the camps. 



From the end of 1948, cases began to appear in the newspapers in which camp inmates who immigrated to Israel recognized the capo of the camp where they were staying.

In many cases, the police have been identified as a "capo".

By June 1950, hundreds of cases had been opened against Jews (and some Christians), on suspicion of having previously collaborated with the Nazis. 



On August 1, 1950, the law was enacted to prosecute the Nazis and their aides.

In retrospect, many errors were identified in identifying the suspects as "capo," and there were also cases of so-called "gossip," which stemmed from hatred or the closing of a personal account.



"Of the approximately 300 cases opened against suspects, only 40 of them have been prosecuted," explains Prof. Hanna Jablonka of Ben-Gurion University, "and of these, only about two-thirds were convicted of prison terms of one and a half years on average."



The first trial opened in early December 1950 and aroused great interest among the public, along with a storm of emotion among Holocaust survivors: it was the first time that live testimony from the Holocaust was heard in an Israeli court, more than ten years before the opening of the Eichmann trial (1961).



Prof. Jablonka, who published a comprehensive article in 1995 about the phenomenon of "capo" in the camps, says: It was decided in the State Archives to shelve the protocols of the various capo trials for a period of decades. "



It should also be noted that in 2010, the Israeli film "Capo", by Danny Paran, Danny Seton and Tor Ben-Muir, won the Emmy Award in the category of documentary films.

Due to the condition of the buildings: Old Jaffa is being evacuated

Houses in Old Jaffa before the evacuation, 1950 // Photo: Moshe Frieden, GPO

At the beginning of December 1950, a ministerial committee headed by the Minister of Labor, Golda Myerson (Meir), decided to evacuate all the inhabitants of Old Jaffa, about 500 families, including new immigrants - mainly from the Balkans and North Africa.

The reason for the evacuation was the dilapidated condition of most of the buildings in the place, where the residents lived in inhumane conditions. 



The Ministerial Committee approved a budget for the construction of a temporary barracks camp in "Givat HaTamarim" (the Darwish neighborhood, now Jaffa IV), where the evacuees will live until the construction of housing for them is completed.

The Custodian General for Absentee Property announced that "after the demolition of the buildings, a large hotel will be built at the top of the hill." 



The evacuation was sluggish, as the plan to build the barracks as a temporary residence for the evacuees came to an end almost immediately after foundations were laid for 40 of the 500 barracks required to accommodate the evacuees.

This is due to a severe shortage of cement that prevailed in those days in the country. 



In January 1951, before the demolition of the buildings began, it was decided that several dozen houses on two streets in the southern part of Old Jaffa (the "Christian Quarter") would be renovated, and they now constitute the artists' quarter and the galleries. 



Over the years, the ruins area of ​​Old Jaffa has become a hotbed of crime and crime, dubbed the "Great Area" - a term that starred in Israeli songwriting (for example, in the song "There is nothing like Jaffa at night"), literature ("Hasamba", "Jaffa pictures") and cinema (in movies "Casablanca", "Eldorado", "Policeman Azoulay" and more). 



Only in 1965 was the evacuation of all the residents of the area completed and the restoration work began.

The residents of Old Jaffa were transferred, after many hardships and difficulties, to housing developments in the south of Jerusalem Boulevard in Jaffa and in the Jesse Cohen neighborhood in Holon.

Thanks to Shmuel Giller, a Jaffa historian, for his assistance



Draw a new image for the country

Image poster designed by Jean David, 1950s

On December 1, 1950, three separate exhibitions were opened at the Artists' House in Jerusalem, by Emanuel Grau, Yosef (Yossi) Stern and Jean David, whose common denominator was the curator's demand, Felix Goodman, "to present Israel's image in a new light and in different and interesting ways."



Emanuel Grau, the youngest in the group, a Bezalel graduate in painting, presented a sequence of gouache paintings depicting various landscapes in the country.

"The uniqueness of these paintings is that Israel is presented in a soft and comforting visual, in which I present the hot and cruel landscape in a conciliatory tone."

Yossi Stern, on the other hand, brought up sketches of urban situations, in pencil, pen and watercolor, which were full of humor.

"I want to present the people of the city of Jerusalem, torn between its parts, as living in pleasantly humorous situations, in a kind of movement of free flow and without a trace, like that of a river," he explained.



Jean David concentrated in his exhibition the most interest from the audience and art critics.

David was a multidisciplinary artist and designer, acquiring a sizable fan base in the three years since immigrating to Israel.

Many foretold him greatness and besieged, and indeed, in the 1950s and 1960s he directly influenced the visual image of Israel, as series of his works were displayed on posters distributed around the world and created for the country a modern and intriguing image, deeply rooted in the biblical roots of the land 



. He also worked in interior design, painting and drawing, specializing in the design of ceramics and tapestries. He worked in the 1950s as the home designer of El Al and designed its first aircraft and passenger hall at Lod Airport. In addition, he designed decorative walls in the public spaces of passenger ships. " ZIM ", at the entrances of large hotels in Israel (such as Dan Acadia and Sheraton), as well as at the Technion and the Weizmann Institute.

"Stop poking around for immigrants"

It became clear to the Minister of Agriculture, Pinchas Lubianiker (Lavon), in early December 1950 that the order he had passed to the customs in Haifa, "to stop rummaging through the immigrants' belongings to find food," was not fulfilled.

In a telephone conversation with the minister with Ephraim Tennenbaum, the director of customs at the port of Haifa, the latter claimed that "the new directive did not reach his ears."

The enraged minister informed Tennenbaum that "from tomorrow until further notice you are required to call my office every day at 12:00 noon and inform me if my order is being complied with verbally."

No laundry soap

At the beginning of December 1950, the laundry soap industry in Israel came to a halt after the cargo of caustic soda, a chemical required in the soap production process, ran out in government warehouses.

Soap manufacturers have warned that the stock of laundry soaps may run out long before a new shipment of caustic soda arrives from abroad 



. "She does not have to worry about where the next bar of soap for washing her clothes will come from."

Laundry soap poster // Designer: Franz Krauss

The victim in favor of the robber

On December 3, 1950, the trial of Menashe Warszewski, an actor in the Li-La-Lou theater, who had broken into the apartment of 60-year-old Marina Lissner in Tel Aviv six months earlier, began to tie her to a chair and rob her of money and valuables.

Warszewski pleaded guilty, and the robber turned to the judge and asked to say a few words.

"The defendant did break into my house, robbed me and even beat me," she noted with great excitement, "but I am convinced that he acted out of great distress and pray to God to have mercy on him."

Warszewski was eventually sentenced to three years in prison.

Ads that were

One "eye" is free

The Disappeared / Nostalgia in the Kibbutz

"How much did it go down?"

Examination of data from their emphasis, early 1960s

A question that was asked in kibbutzim every day in those times, during the rainy season between November and March.

The question refers to the "accentuated" data: how many mm of precipitation fell during the night, how much yesterday, how much in a monthly summary, how much compared to the previous year - etc. The "how much" rained data was printed from time to time Today, when agriculture is a secondary industry in most kibbutzim, the question of "how much has gone down" has disappeared.

The grocery store / items since

Self-assembled amplifier

Photo: Nostalgia Online Archive Online

Stereo technology, which broke into our lives in Israel in the 1960s, gave a big boost to the purchase of stereo amplifiers, which illustrated to us the power of the new era in listening to music from records.

The prices of the amplifiers were particularly high, and soon self-assembling "kits" began to appear on the market for self-assembly of an amplifier, which required a basic technical sense.

Left-handed people also bought the kits and turned to an experienced friend, and within a day or two the speakers were plugged into the new amp.

The enjoyment was twofold - from the music and the savings.

The "Arza" convalescent home reopened 

Photo: Fritz Cohen, GPO

At the beginning of December 1950, the "Arza" convalescent home, located in the town of Motza Illit near Jerusalem, was reopened, after serving as a temporary hospital for the wounded in the battles of the War of Independence.

The place was renovated, and a new dining room was established for 140 vacationers, a state-of-the-art diet kitchen, a reading room and more.

"Arza" was established by the Histadrut and opened in 1927 on the land where the state contract, Binyamin Ze'ev Herzl, planted a cedar tree during his visit to Israel in 1898.

Over the years, "Arza" is considered the best convalescent home in the country, and today it is renovated and preserved as a cultural center - as part of a complex of luxury residences

Do you have pictures or souvenirs from the first days of the country?

Write to us: shishabat@israelhayom.co.il

Were we wrong?

Fixed!

If you found an error in the article, we'll be happy for you to share it with us

Source: israelhayom

All news articles on 2022-01-28

You may like

News/Politics 2024-02-23T06:14:00.906Z
News/Politics 2024-02-04T17:10:10.158Z
News/Politics 2024-02-06T06:22:07.945Z

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-27T16:45:54.081Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.