Famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal has proposed holding an international conference in Austria to reduce hate.
“The younger generation must be warned against prejudices, especially against the prejudice of racial hatred, which has always led only to innumerable suffering,” Wiesenthal told the U.N. General Assembly here Monday.
The ruddy-cheeked Wiesenthal, who lives in Vienna, spoke as the representative of Austria at a session linked to the United Nations’ Year of Tolerance.
The 86-year-old’s comments come at a time when his homeland has seen a strong showing by Jorg Haider, the leader of the far-right Freedom Party, who wants to become the chancellor of Austria.
One in three Freedom Party supporters manifests strong anti-Semitic prejudice, according to a American Jewish Committee survey releases in May.
In Austria’s last parliamentary elections, in October 1994, Haider’s party took almost 25 percent of the votes. The next elections are set for Dec. 17.
In an interview after his speech, Wiesenthal said of Haider’s aspirations to lead the country: “It will be a political catastrophe and people know it.”
Wiesenthal’s presence at the United Nations on behalf of Austria “sends a clear signal” that the Austrians do not want to “go down a road” which would lead to Haider’s victory, said Mark Weitzman, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Task Force Against Hate.
In November 1994, Austrian President Thomas Klestil acknowledged his nation’s role in the atrocities of the Holocaust.
The paths of Wiesenthal and Haider have crossed in the past.
Earlier this year, Haider protested the center’s refusal to remove his photo from its Museum of Tolerance display of modern-day demagogues.
In June, Haider opposed making Wiesenthal an honorary citizen of Vienna.
At the United Nations on Monday, Wiesenthal dedicated much of his speech to the Holocaust.
Wiesenthal, who spent the war in concentration camps, said, “As a survivor of the Nazi period – my wife and I lost 89 family members in the Holocaust – I have dedicated my life to the struggle for justice.”
His comments came a month after the United National marked the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II with a resolution about the “untold sorrow and ravages to mankind” wrought by the war, with no specific reference to the Holocaust.
In his remarks Monday, Wiesenthal talked of the Nov. 4 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
“There could be no better example of what can happen as a result of a lack of tolerance, the inability to deal with differences of opinion in any other way than with aggression and murder,” he said. “It made clear to us once again how much hatred and how little tolerance there is in the world.”
After his address, Wiesenthal; the Austrian ambassador to the United Nations, Ernst Sucharipa; and representatives of the Wiesenthal Center met with U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. The international meeting on hate was discussed at the meeting.
Later that day, a film on Wiesenthal’s life, “The Art of Remembrance – Simon Wiesenthal,” premiered.
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