Dr. Ludwig Erhard, former Chancellor of West Germany and his wife received a warm welcome on their arrival at Lod Airport last night to begin a 10-day visit to Israel as the guests of Prime Minister Levi Eshkol who was on hand to greet them. The West German leader, who came in a private capacity, was pleased with the friendly crowd at the airport and expressed surprise that there were “no anti-Erhard demonstrators” on hand.
In reply to Mr. Eshkol’s greetings, he spoke of increasing pro-Israel sentiment in West Germany and sympathy with Israel’s “struggle for a lasting peace.” The Erhard tour began with visits to the Yad Vashem, a shrine of Jewish martyrs of the Nazi holocaust and to the holy places in Jerusalem. He was guest of honor at a dinner tonight given by Premier Eshkol.
Leaflets signed “Remnants of the Gas Chambers,” and addressed to Dr. Erhard were circulated clandestinely tonight. The leaflets asked whether the former Chancellor had not indirectly participated in the slaughter of the six million European Jews by the Nazis and accused him of failing to bring to justice “tens of thousands” of Nazi murderers “still free in the federal republic.” Observers said that the leaflets were mild in comparison to similar material distributed in Israel in the past.
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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.
