Histories of the Jewish ‘Collaborator’: Exile, Not Guilt

Abstract

This chapter examines the courtroom as incubator of two sorts of histories in contested cases of Holocaust ‘collaboration’: the micro-history of what happened—who did what to whom and why?—and the macro-history of what to remember and celebrate (and collaterally what to banish and exile). This chapter takes up two judicial proceedings. First, the libel charges criminally brought by the State of Israel on behalf of Rudolf Kastnerin 1954-1955 against Malchiel Gruenwald, an independent journalist who had accused Kastner of ‘collaborating’ with the Nazis. Second, the trial of Julius Siegel which was held in Israel in 1953 under legislation the Knesset enacted to criminally charge suspected Jewish collaborators who had emigrated to Israel following the Holocaust. In both cases, trials and judgments were awkward, ornery, staccato, and gnarly. When it comes to micro-histories, formal criminal proceedings narrated a reductive story about collaboration that lacked finesse and suppleness. These very same formal trials were however somewhat effective in manufacturing the macrohistorical content of collective memory by elevating heroism and sacrifice while banishing compromise, negotiation, and survivalism.