Jacob Blaustein, president of the American Jewish Committee, today sent the following telegram to Secretary of State Dean Acheson praising the U.S. State Department for condemning Austria’s recently enacted Nazi amnesty legislation:
“The U.S. Department of State has upheld the best traditions of democracy in denouncing Austrian Nazi amnesty legislation and the unjust changes in the national restitution laws, enacted almost in secrecy, ” the telegram said. “We urge that there be no compromise with the inequities of these laws, which, in effect, reward Nazis for their misdeeds while penalizing the very victims of these same Nazis.
” Austria must choose between acceptance of reasonable and just requirements indemnifying and easing the lot of the victims of Nazism, or inviting disaster by permitting a decisive victory for neo-Nazism, which can only pave the way to undermining Austria’s resistance to Communist infiltration. We feel certain,” the message to Acheson concludes, “that a veto by the Allied Powers is the only answer to the deplorable acts of the Austrian Government.”
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