Foreign Minister Walter Scheel yesterday became the first German cabinet minister to visit the site of the former Auschwitz concentration camp at Ozwiecim, Poland. In that country to discuss reconciliation with Polish officials, Mr. Scheel was visibly moved as he wrote in the memorial book following his tour of the camp: “In the face of these horrors, this inhumanity, it must be our task to preserve these highest values: the dignity of man and peace between nations.” Mr. Scheel also became the highest German official to visit Poland since the end of World War II. The minister, who is usually smiling and ebullient, was silent and grim-faced as he was shown the Auschwitz crematoria and museum. His visit was covered by German television.
In West Berlin, the 32nd anniversary of the mass destruction of German Jewish property on “Crystal Night” was marked today by Lord Mayor Karl Schuetz, who visited the Jewish community building, laid a wreath and said no one must forget that event. On Nov. 9, 1938, there began a 14-hour rampage during which German homes, synagogues and shops were smashed and burned and at least four persons were killed, and after which some 25,000 Jews were arrested. The catalyst for the destruction was the assassination of 32-year-old Third Secretary Ernst Edward von Rath by 17-year-old Herschel Feivel Grynazpan, who had been angered by the expulsion of his fellow Polish Jews from the Reich. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels said the mass wreckage represented “the justified and comprehensible indignation of the German people over the odious Jewish murder in Paris.”
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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.
