Heinz Galinski, leader of the Jewish community in West Berlin, warned today that 30 years after the fall of the Nazi regime, economic recession in West Germany and increasing dissatisfaction with the government have established the pre-conditions for radicalism which could make victims of Jews. He charged that West German universities were breeding grounds for radicals who, he claimed, exploited the apathy of the mass of students. It is a sad fact that 30 years after Auschwitz, Jewish property in West Germany had to be protected by the police, he said.
Galinski did not identify the “radicals.” He spoke here on the 30th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the most infamous of Nazi death camps where four million persons perished and only 6000, Galinski among them, survived.
“No camp was more the symbol of the Nazi inferno than Auschwitz,” he said. “It was synonymous with genocide, carried out with the most modern technical and scientific devices and a perfectly organized administrative machine,” Galinski stated. He urged the West German authorities to take action against German elements who describe the horror of Auschwitz as a “lie.” It is up to West German democracy to protect the young people against such thinking, he said.
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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.