President Charles de Gaulle himself is “extremely” interested in the proposed exhumation of French victims of Nazism from the cemetery at the former Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and will take up the matter with West German authorities “on the highest level.” This statement was made yesterday by Raymond Triboulet, Minister of Veterans Affairs, at an impressive ceremony here consecrating an exhibit at the Tomb to the Unknown Jewish Martyr, commemorating the Bergen-Belsen victims.
Exhumation of the remains in French war graves at Bergen-Belsen was begun several months ago, but was halted after a number of Jewish groups protested against the plan to bring the remains back to this country for re-burial. At the ceremonies yesterday, where M. Triboulet made his statement, an objection to the plan was voiced again, by H. A. van Dam, secretary general of the Central Committee of Jews in Germany. Mr. van Dam said his committee would certainly continue to oppose the plan, because identification of any individual bodies in the mass graves at Bergen-Belsen is impossible.
Prof. Rene Cassin, head of the French Council of State, and former chairman of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, greeted many notables attending the dedication ceremonies and declared: “The lesson to be learned from the horrors at Bergen-Belsen and similar atrocities is that one must not ever permit such concepts to gain a foothold.” Among those present were Israeli Ambassador Jacob Tsur and the Ambassadors of Poland and Yugoslavia.
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