The unified German state will not forget the Holocaust or its responsibility to fight anti-Semitism, Chancellor Helmut Kohl pledged in a Rosh Hashanah message to the Jewish community last Thursday.
The West German leader also reiterated his government’s commitment to the security and well-being of the country’s Jewish minority.
He said that after the unification of West and East Germany takes place on Oct. 3, the enlarged German state would work to keep alive the memory of the Holocaust and fight every manifestation of anti-Semitism.
Kohl’s message seemed aimed at reassuring the Jewish community, which has been disturbed by cemetery desecrations and other anti-Semitic acts that have erupted in both West and East Germany in recent months.
Jewish leaders also are irritated that the preamble to the unification agreement merging the two German states contains no reference to the Holocaust, despite earlier assurances from Kohl.
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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.
