A committee of French and Israeli experts will attempt to determine whether it is possible to distinguish between French victims and those of other nationalities, buried in mass graves at the former Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, it was disclosed this week-end. Agreement on this step was reached by the French Foreign Ministry with the German Ambassador and Dr. Nahum Goldmann, chairman of the Jewish Agency.
The agreement is seen as a step toward settlement of a dispute as to whether the remains of French victims at Bergen-Belsen should be disinterred for reburial in this country. When efforts to exhume the bodies of the French victims were begun a few months ago, Jewish groups protested vigorously and the work was stopped. Jacob Kaplan. Chief Rabbi of France, has protested against the cessation of exhumations, insisting there was no Jewish religious foundation for such stoppage. The French hold that the graves of French victims can be located in one section of the former, huge, Nazi death can at Bergen-Belsen.
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