Theft-Murder: The Inadequacy of Reparations and Restitution as a Result of Anti-Semitism

At a conference regarding Holocaust-era assets, Elie Wiesel, a Nobel Prize Laureate and distinguished writer, quoted the First Book of Kings, "You have committed murder and now you wish to inherit the victim's fortune as well" (Authers XII). He was clearly pointing to the modern example of this type of theft-murder. Wiesel described analogous instances of industries and governments taking the lives of the Jews and then their possessions. The Nazi government perpetrated the largest genocide of the twentieth century, thereby committing some of the most heinous acts ever played out on the world stage. Regrettably, the acts were uncompleted in 1945; the injustices of twentieth-century anti-Semitism go far beyond the gas chambers of Auschwitz and the crematories of Dachau. They extend comfortably into the modern era, even unto the present day. It is high time that they were ended forever; the Jews deserve restitutions for not only stolen possessions and money, but also for their slave labor in concentration and work camps. …