When 12-year-old Benjamin Navon arrived in Palestine with his parents in 1945, he had already survived World War II in a Rumanian ghetto, wearing a yellow star and witnessing as more than half of the Jews in his town were deported to Ukrainian work camps, many to perish of hunger and disease. Yet, the boy hardly received a warm, comforting welcome to help him begin the new chapter in his life. "I was a member of Betar in Rumania, and coming to Israel was the aim of my life," recalls Navon, a former diplomat who now represents Daimler-Benz in Israel. "But the way the first waves of survivors were received in Israel is a tragic story. The old-timers were very unfeeling toward us. They clearly considered the survivors an embarrassment, asking us over and over again how we could have been sent 'like lambs to the slaughter.' It was only during the Eichmann trial years later that the perception of the Holocaust began to change in Israel."

The absence of support and empathy for survivors in the early years of the State is an issue Navon often discusses now as chairman of the executive board of AMCHA, Israel's association for psychological and social assistance to Holocaust survivors and their families. Many AMCHA clients who arrived in Israel as children agree that it was hardest for the young immigrants to find acceptance.

Benjamin as a young man

"My parents were insulated within their own German-speaking immigrant community, so they didn't have much cultural confrontation." Navon relates. "But I was sent to a kibbutz school where I was the only survivor among the 800 students." A gifted chessplayer, Navon left the school's chess team in protest of the treatment he received. "I don't play chess to this very day," he says. After running away several times, he left the kibbutz for good a year after he arrived.

Although survivors were again in the vast minority at the Reali School in Haifa, the young man nevertheless excelled there, and went on to succeed at officers' training in the Israel Defense Forces. After graduating from Hebrew University with a bachelor's degree in economics and sociology and a degree from its Graduate School of Business, Navon began his career with Israel's Foreign Service. His experiences paint a fascinating picture of many events that have shaped the Middle East and the world over the last four decades.

In 1962, with his wife, Dora, a survivor who is now an orthodontist and well-known sculptor, Navon moved to New York to become Israel's vice consul there.

Benjamin Today

"At that time, we were combating the Arab boycott," he recalls. Two years later, he became Israel's economic attache in Teheran, where the oldest of the couple's three sons was born. "Israel had huge projects in Iran," Navon says. "They were fascinating years." After spending several years in the position of Foreign Ministry spokesman in Jerusalem under Foreign Minister Yigal Allon, Navon served as minister of the Israeli Embassy in Washington from 1976 to 1978. "It was a very exciting year, from the beginning of peace negotiations with Egypt through the signing of the Camp David agreements," he remembers. That year was followed by a five-year stint as consul general in Los Angeles and five more years of foreign service work in Israel. In 1988, Navon became Israel's ambassador to Germany - again serving through historic times.

"October 3, 1991 was the day of German unification," he relates, with the official announcement taking place at the Reichstag in Berlin. "The Reichstag was located on the infamous Prince Albrecht street, in close proximity to Hitler's last bunker, as well as the S.S. and Gestapo headquarters. Today, this dreadful street exists only in the collective memory of our people."

On that joyous day in Germany's history, the Israeli ambassador also felt a reason to rejoice. "My wife and I arrived in the official car of the Israeli embassy, with the flag of Israel flying," he smiles. "I took her hand and said, 'Look at us-two survivors. The Germans are celebrating their unification. But we are celebrating our own victory. I am the ambassador of a sovereign Jewish state to a new Germany. We have won."

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