Jewish Martyrs’ Memorial Dedicated in Paris; Soviet Envoys Present

A worldwide memorial to the 6,000,000 European Jews martyred by the Nazis was dedicated here today at ceremonies marking the laying of a cornerstone of the tomb of an Unknown Jewish Martyr, which will be the center of the entire memorial. Two representatives of the Soviet Union, the only representatives from any Communist country, unexpectedly attended the ceremonies.

The cornerstone laying ceremonies culminated the long and almost single handed campaign of Isaac Schneersoh, a French Jewish leader who, during the Nazi occupation of France, set up Jewish Contemporary Documentation Center in the southern French city of Grenoble. The actual building of the memorial, on a site donated near the banks of the Seine by the City of Paris, will have to await the results of a worldwide fund-raising campaign.

Among the diplomatic representatives present at today’s ceremonies was Robert P. Joyce, Counselor of the American Embassy, and representatives of Holland, Yugoslavia, Belgium and Luxemburg as well as two Arab leaders of the Moslem religious community of Paris who sat on the dais in long flowing robes and white burnouses. The Soviet Embassy had been sent an invitation to attend the ceremonies but had not replied, so that the arrival of the two Russian diplomats surprised the committee. However, the Russians were quickly seated on the dais next to French Chief Rabbi Jacob Kaplan.

After the address, a Jewish orphan whose parents were murdered in a Nazi death camp drew the curtain and unveiled the cornerstone. When the project is complete it will contain a crypt with the ashes of Jews murdered at various Nazi death camps, a list of tens of thousands of known dead, and a museum containing Nazi and concentration camp relics and other items.