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German President, Chancellor Greet Jews on High Holidays

September 30, 1954
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Continuing the post-war tradition of sending Rosh Hashanah greetings to the Jews of Germany, Bonn President Theodor Heuss issued a message which underlined that the past year saw the effective implementation of the reparations pact with Israel and enumerating such important reparations payments as the first vessel built for Israel, which was recently launched at Hamburg.

Other Federal and provincial government leaders, led by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, also issued New Year’s greetings, as did Walter Freitag, chairman of the German Trade Union Federation, and Erich Ollenhauer, head of the Social Democratic Party. Herr Freitag stressed the common bitter experiences of the trade unionists and the Jews under Hitler, and Herr Ollenhauer said his movement was ashamed of the fact that Jewish survivors of the Nazi holocaust had still not received the indemnification which Germany is morally and legally obligated to pay.

Dedication services for the first rebuilt synagogue in the entire Palatinate area of Germany were held at Neustadt on the Weinstrasse just before the Rosh Hashanah holiday. The representatives of the government and of various churches attended the dedication services which featured the unveiling of a monument to the victims of the Nazis in front of the synagogue. Only 350 Jews survive in all of the Palatinate of the 18,000 who lived there before Hitler.

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