Criminal proceedings against anti-Semites should be brought by public prosecutors, and not be left to libel or defamation actions by individuals or by Jewish organizations, Dr. H. G. Van Dam, general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, declared here today. He criticized the government’s proposed bill, in the Parliament at Bonn, which would enact legislation banning racial religious slander, Dr. Van Dam said that the proposed measure is “inadequate.”
The government’s bill is unsatisfactory, Dr. Van Dam declared, because it does not provide for public prosecution. He recommended the publication of the transcripts of recent trials involving former concentration camp officials sirs to make possible coordinated court action against anti-Semites. The Jewish leader was the principal speaker here today at the annual meeting of the Jewish Central Council. Among other speakers at the two-day session was North Rhine-Westphalia Minister of the Interior Dushes.
Dr. Van Dam voiced protest against the slow process of indemnification proceedings. At the present pace, he said, indemnification will not be completed until 1966, while the legal deadline was supposed to be 1962. He estimated that the total needed for indemnification was an estimated 16 billion deutsche marks. He declared that, up to March 31, 1959, only 1, 800, 000 claims had been processed, of a total of 8, 000, 000 claims.
A pledge to fight “extremist movements” with every means at his disposal was voiced in his address by Dr. Dushev. The government of his state, he said, was determined to wipe out the extremist movements. Calling for stiffer measures against those responsible for Nazi crimes, he warned against “Claudestine groups who are aiding the Nazi criminals. “The German youth,” stated the North Rhire-Westphalia Cabinet member, “are democratic and tolerant,” but anti-Semitic and anti-democratic ideas are being disseminated by the middle aged Germans who had been “prisoned by Nazi ideals during Hitler’s regime.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
