Special Interview the Main Lesson of the Holocaust

Gideon Hausner, chairman of the Council of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, charged that while the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors two weeks ago in Washington was “very touching” and “very strong on the human side,” it failed to give prominence to the lessons of the Holocaust.

“The main lesson of the Holocaust is that we have got to have a strong Israel as the only guarantee for the safety of the Jewish people,” Hausner said in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “This, however, was not reflected in the speeches of American leaders who addressed the Gathering, especially in President Reagan’s and Vice President George Bush’s remarks.”

“If paying tribute to the Holocaust should become a substitute for strengthening Israel, it would only detract from the memory of the victims of the Holocaust,” Hausner said. He pointed out that weakening Israel by banning the sale of F-16 jet fighters, as Reagan has done, shows that the lessons of the Holocaust have not been learned.

“If one really desires to learn the lessons of the Holocaust, it is not enough to pay lip service, not even to erect a monument (to the memory of the victims). One has got to do something tangible: strengthening Israel,” he contended.

NEW PROJECTS OF YAD VASHEM

Hausner, who was in New York after attending the Gathering in Washington, said that another purpose for his visit to the United State was to seek the assistance of American Jews for two new projects of Yad Vashem.

One project is the Valley of the Perished Communities, a memorial to the hundreds of Jewish communities that were destroyed by the Nazis. The other project is the publication of the full history of the Holocaust in several volumes. Hausner said that the history of the Holocaust will be written by the “best scholars and experts” in Israel and in other countries. He said this project will probably take seven years to accomplish.

MUST BRING WAR CRIMINALS TO JUSTICE

Hausner, who was the prosecutor in the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961-62, said in response to a question that as time passes by it becomes more and more difficult to bring Nazi war criminals still at large to justice.

For one thing, he observed, “Germany is not too keen now in going on with this process (of trying war criminals). Many people in Germany would like to put the Nazi era behind them and forget about the whole thing.”

For another, he said, there is the age problem of the Nazi war criminals. “These are probably the last years in which we can bring the Nazi war criminals to justice,” he noted. “They are aging, and their age become more and more an obstacle. We have to move very quickly and try as many as possible. There are still many Nazis on the run, in the U.S., Canada and South America.”

Asked to name the three most wanted Nazis today, Hausner listed them as Dr. Joseph Mengele, the “doctor of death” who conducted inhuman experiments and tortured to death thousands of inmates in Auschwitz; Martin Borman, Hitler’s deputy in the Nazi Party; and Wilhelm Raucke, who operated the “gas vans” in which many Jews were killed. Hausner said the three are probably living in South America.

Hausner said that Israel will continue to help bring Nazi war criminals to justice, but he discounted the possibility that Israel would again be involved in an Eichmann-style abduction of any Nazi. He was referring to the abduction of Eichmann from Argentina by Israeli agents. “Eichmann was a unique case because of the central role he played in the liquidation of European Jewry,” Hausner said.