A simple ten-foot red brick obelisk, (##) by a Star of David in which burns an eternal light, was dedicated yesterday in the Zeilsheim assembly center for Jewish displaced persons, near here, in memory of the 5,700,000 Jews of Europe murdered by the Nazis.
Almost all of the 2,800 Jews housed in the center, which is run by UNRRA, extended the ceremonies, held in a cleared space in front of the obelisk, on one side of which candles burned in an eight-branched condelabra. Standing in the foreground were 60 children, ranging from tots to full grown youths, who were orphaned by the Germans. In the background were the older residents, wearing every conceivable type of clothing.
Thirteen-year-old Joseph Yeselovitch, of Poland, a veteran of many concentration camps, spoke, declaring that “we all have a sacred duty to turn our grief into an affort to reach the land of Israel.” There is no doubt that he spoke for the overwhelming majority of the camp’s residents, most of whom had returned to Poland in resent months and then fled because of continued anti-Semitism there.
Sylvan H. Nathan, a New York City attorney, who was recently released from the army to join UNRRA as director of the Zeilsheim center, urged the assembled refugees not to lose hope. Rabbi Nathan Neuhaus, of Frankfurt, the first German rabbi to return to his pre-war parish, praised UNRRA and the JDC for their aid to the displaced Jews in western Germany.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
