Kapo Trials: How Israel Judged the Jewish Collaborators

In September 1960 Hirsch Barenblat – a 45-year-old conductor at the Israeli Opera – gave a performance at the Tel Yitzhak Kibbutz auditorium. As Barenblat sat, fingers poised over the piano’s keyboard, he was interrupted by a voice from the back of the room: ‘Kapo! Nazi! Murderer!’ Momentarily frozen, Barenblat snatched his score and left the stage, seeking refuge in his dressing room. It was there, moments later, that the Tel Yitzhak leadership arrived to inform him that they would not allow a Jew accused of collaboration with the Nazis to perform in their kibbutz. Three years on he would find himself on trial, formally accused of the crimes first levelled at him at the Tel Yitzhak concert.