More than 1, 000 Hebrew University students, protesting a visit by former West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer to the university, clashed with police today as the ex-Chancellor, who is visiting Israel as is guest of the Israel Government, arrived on the campus.
About 18 of the demonstrators were wounded and several arrested as some 500 police, wearing steel helmets, battled the rioting students to clear a path for Dr. Adenauer and his party. The demonstration started early this morning and reached a peak when the former Chancellor’s cavalcade entered the campus through a side entrance. The students, carrying posters and shouting “Adenauer Raus, ” managed to reach the central building where the former Chancellor’s group was entertained by University president Eliahu Elath and faculty members.
The noise of the clash did not penetrate Mr. Elath’s soundproofed office but the visitors could clearly see through the windows the battle between the students and the police. Throughout the clash on campus. Dr. Adenauer calmly continued to examine books and to discuss cultural matters with his faculty hosts.
When he first learned of the plans for the demonstration, Dr. Adenauer told his hosts: “I have experienced many demonstrations and I am not afraid of them. Let us go. I am even prepared to meet with a student delegation.”
PROTEST IN FRONT OF ESHKOL’S OFFICE AGAINST ‘POLICE BRUTALITY’
After Dr. Adenauer left the campus, 1, 000 students assembled before Premier Levi Eshkol’s office in Jerusalem to protest against “police brutality.” The students sang songs against the police and against the Premier, and called through loudspeakers to the Premier to receive them. Officials said the Premier was “unfindable.”
Dr. Adenauer’s visit to the University was cut short because the police appeared to be in danger of losing control of the situation. Several hundred police surrounded the 90-year-old German statesman as he left the campus. He reportedly said “I can understand their feelings. It is all so sad,” It was reported that among the injured students one was in serious condition with a fractured skull. Several policemen also were hurt.
The demonstrators started assembling on the campus early in the morning and before noon, there were several hundred students with almost as many police present. Shortly before Dr. Adenauer arrived, a number of fights erupted and when the cavalcade entered the grounds, the fighting began in earnest, the police wielding clubs and the students using banners and sticks.
Dr. Adenauer concluded his visit to Jerusalem with a “thank you to the Jewish people who helped us Germans wash off the shame and the dirt of the past, which has helped us become once again members of the family of nations.” He spoke at a luncheon tendered by the Conference on Material Claims Against Germany. “I spoke only briefly,” he added “only a few words for what else can I say but thank you.”
He recalled his association with Dr. Nahum Goldmann, “a man who was prepared to seek, together with us, a new future. I must also thank him.” Dr. Goldmann, as president of the Claims Conference, had a key role in arranging for West German reparations to Israel and restitution payments to Jewish victims of Nazism. Dr. Adenauer disclosed that West Germany has paid out about $40,000,000,000 in reparations and restitution, of which nearly $10,000,000,000 has been paid to Jews. He said “we never counted, as some say we did. Our only wish and desire was to try to make up as far as humanly possible for the terrible past.”
ADENAUER ASSURES THE PAST CANNOT REPEAT ITSELF IN GERMANY
The German elder statesman assured his audience, made up of Cabinet Ministers, judges, scholars and other public figures, that “the past cannot repeat itself in Germany, if for no other reason than because the Germans have learned that nothing good can come out of injustice. “He asserted that righrwing political groups in West Germany were small, consisting mainly of persons over 45 and that “our youth is healthy and Germany will never again be what it was.”
Dr. Goldmann, speaking as Claims Conference president, paid tribute to Dr. Adenauer as “the greatest figure in contemporary Germany without whom nothing of what has been done in German-Jewish relations could have been achieved.” Dr. Goldmann
also said that “normalization does not mean forgetfulness, for nations can never forget either their victories or their shames, their bravery or their cowardice.”
ADENAUER CALLS ON ISRAEL PRESIDENT; SAYS ISRAEL IS ‘BEAUTIFUL’
The problem now, Dr. Goldmann added, is no longer material reparations, “which is relatively easier to settle, but moral reparations.” He called West Germany’s legislation on indemnification and restitution “a unique phenomenon” in that “there is practically no precedent where a new government has paid indemnification to victims of a past regime who are not citizens of its country. This legislation has created a new and important precedent in international legislation.”
Earlier in the day. Dr. Adenauer called on President Shazar at the President’s home for a 30 minute meeting. He also visited the Jerusalem Town Hall, where he was presented with a city pin by Mayor Theodore Kollek. Dr. Adenauer, who served for many years as mayor of Cologne, remarked “here in this house I feel at home in a place which I am used to and like.”
He attended a dinner last night tendered by Foreign Minister Abba Eban. There he said: “When I return home, it will be with a feeling of deep satisfaction with all I have seen here. It is a beautiful and strong country and I wish it a blessed and peaceful future.”
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.
