The American section of the World Jewish Congress today concluded its two-weeks’ special conference here with a number of decisions including a recommendation that the General Council of the organization be summoned in the late summer of 1951.
The conference condemned the policy of rearming Germany “as likely to revive and strengthen” the military elements who have always menaced the democratic, peaceful world. It also viewed with the “gravest disquiet” the collapse of the Allied denazification policy, the Bonn Government’s failure to suppress anti-Semitism, “the restoration of known and avowed former Nazis to positions of authority and the liberation of convicted Nazi war criminals.” The conference called upon the Allied Powers to obtain German guarantees of payment of reparations for anti-Jewish crimes of Nazi Germany.
Emphasizing the “increase of anti-Semitic activities in various parts of the world fomented by Nazi and fascist elements who have escaped from and found refuge outside Germany,” the conference decided to call the attention of the governments concerned and the appropriate United Nations organs to the danger points.
The conference also was gravely concerned over “deepening international tensions.” Stressing world Jewry’s vital stake in the maintenance of peace, the conference expressed its “fullest reliance on the strengthening of an effective and all-embracing United Nations Organization as the central factor for world peace,” and promised its complete support and cooperation to the work of the U.N. It examined the present Jewish position in Central and Eastern Europe in relation to “the pressing necessity of Jewish emigration” and special problems affecting the future of the Jews in these countries.
In addition the conference reviewed the world-wide cultural work of the World Jewish Congress; decided to increase cooperation with UNESCO in the fields of general culture, adult education and book revision; stressed continuation of WJC guidance to Jewish organizations and communities throughout the world on best use of their cultural and educational resources and the organization of their growing educational systems.
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