President Heinrich Luebke of West Germany appealed today to Christians and Jews alike to “strive toward a new era of creative existence.” Speaking at ceremonies marking the opening of Brotherhood Week, President Luebke said that “freedom and human dignity are still endangered by totalitarian forces.” He declared the German people should concern themselves with the past and “face the depressing knowledge of all its horrors squarely.”
The Germans as a whole, Mr. Luebke declared, became “the guilty instrument” of the Nazi criminals but numerous Germans courageously and selflessly opposed them, many paying with their lives. Calling on the Jews not to refuse German efforts at conciliation, President Luebke cited a speech by Prime Minister Ben-Gurion in the Knesset, the Israel Parliament, in which the Premier differentiated between Nazi Germany and the Bonn Republic.
Bundestag Deputy Franz Boehm stressed that neo-Nazi anti-Semitic theories “still propagated by small circles in German society must be isolated so that never again will they be associated with political society.”
A number of public events as well as several radio and television programs devoted to Jewish history and Christian Jewish relations, have been scheduled during Brotherhood Week.
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