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European Conference of W.j.c. Adjourns After Demanding Voice in German Peace Treaty

April 28, 1947
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The European Council of the World Jewish Congress concluded here today after voting to reconvene in Paris on Aug. 12. The meeting urged that the Jewish people be given an opportunity to present formally their claims with regard to the treaty of peace with Germany. The treaty should contain the following clauses, the Council declared:

1. An acknowledgment of German guilt in the planned murder of 6,000,000 Jews and disruption of the life of the survivors; 2. Complete elimination under Allied control of all Nazi and Fascist movements, anti-Semitic incitement, and racial propaganda; 3. Legal safeguards of the right of the Jewish population to preserve its religious and cultural identity and freedom; 4. All displaced Jews in Germany must be placed under exclusive Allied or United Nations jurisdiction; 5. Nazi assets should be used for the payment of reparations to the Jewish people. Transfer of property of Jewish refugees living abroad should be facilitated; 6. The above provisions should be carried out under a strict Allied control and Jews should be entitled to appeal to Allied authorities from any German court decision.

Political resolutions voted by the Council hail the granting of consultative status to the World Jewish Congress by the U.N. Social and Economic Council as a recognition of a legal standing of the Jewish people in the international community, and re-affirm that the Congress is authorized to represent all affiliated communities and organizations before all inter-government bodies and international conferences and to present their claims regarding all reconstruction and rehabilitation problems, while each affiliated community retains the authority to make representations to its own government.

The session was marked by frequent clashes among the delegates as to whether the Congress was laying too much stress on Zionism. A Bulgarian delegate charged that the organization was swinging too far toward the Zionist camp, while a Slovakian representative insisted that it dealt too little with the problem of immigration to Palestine. Dr. N. Barou, chairman of the W.J.C. European Council, asserted that 80 percent of the Jews are Zionists.

Adolf Berman, head of the Jewish Central Committee of Poland announced that his group was joining the Congress, stating that Jewish unity was an urgent matter and that the fate of the Jews was linked to that of the peoples of the democratic nations.

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