The executive of the World Jewish Congress, in view of the misinterpretations which have gained currency on its attitude toward the future of the Jewish community now in Germany, today issued a statement making it clear that its recent meeting in New York did not feel authorized to come to any final formulation of policy in regard to this question.
“Whether an organized Jewish community life should in any circumstances continue in Germany, and what should be the attitude of the Jewish people if Jewish groups seek to establish themselves on a permanent basis in Germany, are problems which raise grave and fundemental questions of principle on which judgment can only fittingly be passed by a representative Jewish assembly,” the statement says. “The executive therefore decided to remit these questions to the next widely representative meeting of the World Jewish Congress–either the General Council or the Plenary Assembly of the Congress itself. Accordingly, any impression that the Congress has come to a final judgment is inaccurate and based on the expression of purely individual views.”
“Representatives of Jewish communities and all the bodies which represent Jewish DP’s in Germany participated with full rights in the deliberations of the last plenary session of the Congress, which was held in Montreux, Switzerland, in the summer of 1948,” the statement continues. “All these bodies are affiliated to the Congress, and the executive considers itself as unequivocally bound to continue to support their rights and interests, as well as the rights and interests of the Jewish people as a whole in relation to Germany, until the next international meeting, which will be called upon to formulate policy in the light of the views developed by the affiliated communites and organizations of the Congress throughout the world.
“The discussions on the future of the Jewish communities in Germany will not be allowed to deflect the Congress from its resolve to secure the fulfillment of Jewish demands in the fields of reparations, compensation and restitution; and it will continue also with undiminished determination to demand that appropriate measures be taken to control and curb the re-emergence of Nazism and German anti-Semitism and to prevent the restoration and rearmament of a nationalist Germany, whether in the East or in the West, as a menace to the security of the civilized world,” the statement concludes.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
