The Austrian Ambassador to Britain has reported to the Board of Deputies of British Jews that a special commission has been set up in the Austrian Education Ministry to revise history textbooks and school curricula to promote education of Austrian youth in the spirit of democracy.
The statement, a reply to a Board of Deputies protest on Austrian neo-Nazism, was reported at a meeting of the Board today. It disclosed that a committee of historians had been established to review and re-edit the history textbooks for Austrian schools. In reporting on the Education Ministry activities, the envoy said that Austrian authorities felt that the answer to the problem “lies in the education of the young generation in the spirit of democracy and tolerance, vital to the future of mankind.”
Sir Barnett Janner, chairman of the Board’s foreign affairs committee, told the meeting that the committee would urge on Austrian authorities that they introduce “as speedily as possible” other suggestions made by the Board about “more satisfactory legal procedures for the trial of Nazi criminals, and more effective investigations” of such criminals in Austria.
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