German Newspaper Assails Canadian Jewish Congress on War Criminals Issue

A recent Canadian Jewish Congress appeal to the Canadian Government urging action to find legal means to rescind the Canadian citizenship of suspected war criminals has come under attack in “Der Courier.” a German-language newspaper published in Winnipeg and other major cities, the CJC reported. The CJC had made the appeal on grounds that extradition of such persons was Impossible under Canadian law.

The German-language newspaper charged that the Canadian Jewish Congress “is operating with vague” and unsubstantiated statements which are of an ambiguous and questionable nature.” The newspaper added that such statements “throw a bad light on the entire German Canadian group in whose ranks, to draw the logical inference from the brief, the war criminals would perforce be found.”

The newspaper also accused the CJC of Implying that Canadian immigration authorities had been “negligent In the examination of the political past of a segment of immigrants to Canada. However, the Jewish Congress has no proof of either conclusion” and “the carelessness with which this organization has widely trumpeted its suspicions is regrettable.” The newspaper added that such “suspicions” belong “in the area of that kind of propaganda which not only Jews but many other groups wish to forbid.”

The Joint Community Relations Committee of the CJC and B’nai B’rith said, in commenting on the Courier complaint, that “nowhere in the Congress brief is reference made to the ethnic Identity of the suspected war criminals. The several alleged war criminals now in Canada whose names have been mentioned in the press have been Latvian in origin.” The committee also reported that the Courier article was reprinted in the Deutsch National Zeitung. one of the most extreme of the right-wing newspapers in West Germany.