An official of West Germany’s opposition Social Democratic Party (SPD) likened the current wave of terrorism emanating from the Middle East to the “same nationalistic seed that saw anti-Semitism kindle the flames of the Holocaust.”
In a speech to the biennial convention of the Jewish Labor Committee here last week, Klaus Henning-Rosen, secretary of the SPD’s Human Rights Commission, urged “an international summit in which the nations that are victims of terrorism draft a democratic strategy of defense. This must be high on the agenda and priorities list of every democratic country,” he declared.
Henning-Rosen, who is not Jewish, observed that “A seed we thought was buried in the rubble of the Third Reich is being exploited in the Middle East and exploded on the streets, airports, restaurants, shopping arcades and homes. Those who supply the weapons that destroy innocent lives under the guise of some distortion of justice, traduce freedom, not enhance or guarantee it.”
He also warned that anti-Semitism has not disappeared from Germany. It “is still very much alive,” he told the delegates, noting that the Bundestag devoted a full-scale debate to the subject last February. In the past year alone, there were some 400 recorded cases of anti-Semitism, ranging from the desecration of Jewish cemeteries and synagogue daubings to the “use of foul language against Jews and the denial that the Holocaust was an historical reality.”
The convention adopted a long series of resolutions supporting Israel and Soviet Jewry, attacking “Kahanism” and apartheid and urging President Reagan to recognize that attacks on abortion clinics are terrorist acts.
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.
