FROM OUR ARCHIVES
65 YEARS AGO
On April 6, 1952, The Jerusalem Post reported from Bonn that the head of the German delegation to The Hague reparations talks, Prof. Franz Boehm, returned there for the second time within a week to report to chancellor Konrad Adenauer. At the same time, Hermann Abs, the head of the German delegation to the London Debts Conference, which had adjourned until Easter, had also returned, and a conference was held between the German chancellor and the two delegations’ leaders.
According to the Jewish Chronicle Service in The Hague, little hope for a compromise appeared in sight at the German-Israeli reparation talks. On the fundamental issues the two sides adopted diametrically opposed positions. If neither side would make a spectacular retreat, the conference seemed to be doomed and to break down altogether.
Ambassador Abba Eban informed the US State Department that the negotiations for the restitution and reparations from the West German government had reached a “crucial point,” where the Bonn regime must declare its real intentions. Israel and US sources did not see in this move an attempt to bring pressure on the American government, but merely the need to report on the status of the negotiations.
Paris police detained a leading member of the Herut political party and gave four of his colleagues, including MK Eliezer Shostak, notice to leave France within a week. Police reported that arms were found in a hotel room rented by the Herut organization.
50 YEARS AGO
On April 6, 1967, The Jerusalem Post reported that foreign minister Abba Eban warned Syria that it could not continue to attack Israel with impunity.
A group of about 35 persons demonstrated outside the American Consulate in Jerusalem to protest against the war in Vietnam. The demonstrators, described by police as Communists, described themselves as students and professors of the Hebrew University.
The Arab League spokesman in Cairo claimed that the representatives of five African nations continued their secret summit meeting there and met Arab finance ministers who created a “Financial Organization for the Liberation of Palestine”.
A Voice of Free Syria program began over Amman Radio. Most of those who took part were political refugees from Syria.
Jean-Paul Sartre’s disciples found, after he returned to Paris, that they didn’t like his words and opinions expressed by him during and after his visit to Israel. They objected to his opinion that only in Israel one meets free Jews and that Israel was the only place in the world where you could call a Jew a Jew.
25 YEARS AGO
On April 6, 1992, The Jerusalem
Post announced an international photo contest in conjunction with the International Forum for United Jerusalem, the Professional Photographers of Israel and under the patronage of Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek on the theme: “The Eternal Beauty of Jerusalem and emphasis on peace and coexistence.”
Defense minister Moshe Arens accused prime minister Yitzhak Shamir of caving in to foreign minister David Levy, after an 11th-hour agreement between the two led to Levy’s rescinding his threatened resignation.
The Citizen’s Rights Movement chose MKs Shulamit Aloni, Yossi Sarid, Ran Cohen, and Dedi Zucker to top its Knesset list. MK Mordecai Virshubski’s fate hung in the balance as council members decided to hold a second round of voting.