Solemn Rites Mark Memorials for Holocaust Victims, Warsaw Heroes

A series of solemn rites marking the 20th anniversary of the liberation of wartime concentration camps by Allied armies, and commemorating the 22nd anniversary of the War saw Ghetto rebellion, was being conducted today, and scheduled for the rest of the coming week, in many places in Europe.

At Cracow, Poland, a conference was opened by the International Underground Movements and the Auschwitz Survivors Organizations, following ceremonies at the nearby site of the Auschwitz concentration camp, in which 22,000 Jews and Poles participated. Addresses were delivered during that demonstration by Poland’s Prime Minister Joseph Cyrankewitz and Soviet General Gontcharov, who commanded the troops that liberated Auschwitz 20 years ago. Fifteen youths from Israel participated in these rites, as well as representatives of the Jewish underground in France.

In West Germany, former inmates of the Dachau concentration camp joined representatives of the Judenring, the West German Jewish youth organization, at services in Dachau. Among the principal participants in the ceremonies were Gen. Albert Guerise, of Belgium, president of the International Dachau Committee, and Bishop Johannes Neuhaeusler, of Munich. In Bonn, it was announced that, in ceremonies to be conducted next week at the site of the Bergen-Belsen murder camp, the principal speaker will be West German President Heinrich Luebke.

In Italy, the 20th anniversary of the liberation of Ravenna was celebrated in that city. A large Israeli delegation participated in that demonstration. Among the Israelis were former members of the Jewish Brigade who had fought with the Allies in the liberation of Ravenna. Jewish prayers were recited at the military cemetery, where 40 members of the Jewish Brigade had been interred, and a marble stone brought from Israel was erected in memory of those heroes.