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Israel Representative at U.N. Parley Hits “forgive and Forget” Policy on Germany

July 24, 1951
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The policy of “forgive and forget” which member states of the United Nations are carrying out with regard to Germany’s annihilation of 6,000,000 Jews was severely criticized here by Dr. Jacob Robinson, Israel representative at the United Nations conference of plenipotentiaries called to deal with the status of refugees and stateless persons.

Speaking at the conference, Dr. Robinson said: “Hitlerite Germany waged two wars one for world domination, the other for the destruction of the Jewish people. Six million victims, two-thirds of European Jewry, perished. With the division of the world into two opposing blocks one part of Germany was gradually drawn into one camp, the other into the opposite. This may in part account for the rapidity with which the process of forgive and forget is being carried out in the two parts of Germany.”

The Israeli representative reminded the conference that six years ago Hans Frank, the former Governor-General of Poland and one of the major Nazi war criminals, exclaimed–standing at his trial before the Allied Military Tribunal–that thousands of years will pass and the world will not forget the crime committed by the Germans against the Jewish people. “The world appears to have forgotten and, so it seems, has Germany as well,” Dr. Robinson said. “They have made no expiation whatsoever to the Jewish people. Therefore, while the two blocks may consider that their respective Germanys have expiated their guilt, the Jewish people and the state of Israel cannot do so.”

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