The American Jewish Congress today denounced as “outrageous” the freeing by an Austrian court last week of Franz Novak, Adolf Eichmann’s chief transport officer during World War II. The organization’s national governing council, meeting here, acted after hearing a report by Shad Polier, chairman of the governing council, who stated:
“Twenty-one years after V-E Day, Austrians have yet to demonstrate that they understand their country’s true role as a partner of Hitlerism. This failure of consciousness, this willful shrinking from awareness, creates perhaps the most formidable psychological obstacle in combating the spread of ultra-rightist and neo-Nazi influence within Austria, and in enlarging the areas of genuine freedom and democracy in the country.”
The statement was adopted as a resolution by the entire governing council, and sent to Austria’s Ambassador in Washington who, only last week, received a protest against resurgent neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism in Austria from Dr. Joachim Prinz, chairman of the AJC’s commission on international affairs. (In Tel Aviv, today, a similar sharp protest against Novak’s acquittal was adopted by the Israeli Organization of Former Partisans and Fighters Against Nazism. And in London, a vigorous protest on the same issue was made by A. L. Easterman, international affairs director of the World Jewish Congress.)
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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.
