The American Military Government in Germany has begun an investigation of the opening of a mass grave at the Dachau concentration camp by German workmen of a contracting concern which was using the soil thus obtained for commercial purposes.
An AMG spokesman today announced that the grave has already been ordered closed. He laid responsibility for the desecration of the site, at which was found a Star of David, on the Bavarian Government. He added that Bavaria had been warned three times in the past year or so to provide adequate care for the mass grave which is believed to contain the remains of 2,000 victims of the Nazis.
(In New York, a telegram of protest was yesterday sent to John J. McCloy, American High Commissioner for Germany, by Justice Meir Steinbrink, chairman of the Anti-Defamation League, against the excavation of the grave. Justice Steinbrink asserted that if this action is left unchallenged, it will “become a signal to the Germans that the American authorities condone their bestialities of the past and their current disregard for all human decencies.”
(An editorial in the New York Times today termed the German action “obviously offensive” and added that “it seems incredible that it could have been conceived even by those whose memories are untroubled by guilt or unharrowed by twelve years of German history.” The editorial insisted that the “least” that the German people could do–and something “the German people owe the world”–is to set aside as a “monument and a solemn reminder of the dignity of man” the place where these victims of Nazism rest.)
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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.
