Change unlikely at Claims Conference, says Holocaust historian

Deborah Lipstadt slams Claims Conference for attacking reporters who uncovered theft of $57 million.

By SAM SOKOL
Deborah Lipstadt (photo credit: Courtesy Emory University)
Deborah Lipstadt
(photo credit: Courtesy Emory University)
Instead of taking responsibility for their failure to stop the theft of $57 million over a period spanning almost two decades, the leaders of the Conference of Material Claims Against Germany “attacked those calling for independent investigations as well as the journalists who had been tracking this story,” Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt complained on Thursday.
Posting on Facebook, the former Clinton appointee to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council stated that attacks by the conference chairman Julius Berman on The Jewish Daily Forward, JTA and The Jerusalem Post is a “classic blame the messenger” story.
“There are survivors for whom these funds were allocated, living in difficult circumstances as they are in their twilight years,” she said, calling the situation “heartbreaking.”
However, despite public calls for an external investigation of the conference’s failure to uncover the fraud, Lipstadt said that she believes that “nothing will happen.”
“No one will lose their position. No one will resign. No one will admit that they screwed up... big time,” She added. “To paraphrase a famous line uttered at a Senate hearing many decades ago, have they lost all sense of decency, if not just shame?”