The Canadian Jewish Congress issued a statement here expressing the hope that the emotions and reactions of a large number of Canadians “will not be flouted” by the fact that West German troops are to receive training at Camp Shiloh, in Manitoba.
The CJC noted that “the Jewish citizens of Canada recognize with other Canadians” the value to Western democracy of Canadian commitments to NATO and the need for training forces for NATO. “At the same time, ” the statement declared, “it is an inescapable fact of social and political life that emotions are deeply stirred when such obligations confront a large number of people who personally, or whose families, underwent unparalleled pain and suffering at the hands of Nazi Germany, of which the Wehrmacht and allied military units were the symbol.”
“The Canadian Jewish Congress must assume, ” the statement continued, “that in the discharge of Canada’s treaty obligations, whereby responsibility exists for the training of military personnel by a cadre of German officers, care is taken that this country is not hospitable to those very forces which were integral parts of the machinery of death and destruction of millions of innocent civilians. It is therefore hoped that the understandable emotions and reactions of a large number of newcomers to this country, particularly, as well as of others of our population, will not be flouted by a disregard of the principles involved.”
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