A campaign to protest the expiration next Dec. 31 of West Germany’s statute of limitations on Nazi war Criminals will take place Jan. 30 throughout North America, it was announced here by Rabbi Abraham Cooper, coordinator of the international effort on behalf of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies at Yeshiva University of Los Angeles which is coordinating the Jan. 30 protest campaign.
Rallies have already been planned in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Detroit, Vancouver, Seattle, Atlanta, Chicago and Houston and several other cities are in the process of planning rallies as well, according to Cooper. Thousands of Jews and non-Jews are expected to participate in the touching of what is to become an international campaign to alert world opinion to what Cooper termed West Germany’s denial of its responsibility to bring to justice tens of thousands of Nazi criminals still at large.
JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED
We are calling January 30 a Day of Public Education to inform every concerned citizen that we will not let justice be denied,” Cooper said. He stated that in all cities in North America with German Consulates, groups of community leaders will be meeting with West German representatives to discuss the matter of the statute of limitations. to date, Cooper said, 350,000 postcards preaddressed to West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt have been distributed by the Holocaust Center to groups and individuals across the country requesting material on this issue. The cards bear the statement by Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal, “Moral obligation has no time limit.”
Ephraim Zuroff, Holocaust Center director, and Cooper emphasized that in calling for the Day of Public Education the Center does not encourage any attempt to project an anti-German tone but to express disappointment and surprise that Schmidt has foiled to take a leadership role in opposing the expiration of the statute.
The Jewish War Veterans New York Department announced that it will join forces with the Nazi Camp Survivors and Resistance Fighters Jan 30 in front of the West German Mission to the United Nations to protest the do-nothing attitude of the Bonn government regarding the statute of limitations. The organization warned that allowing the statute to expire “would permit Nazi murderers to escape from justice with impunity.”
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