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Memorial to Victims of Nazism is Dedicated on Site of Dachau Death Camp

September 11, 1968
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There is nothing that specifically relates to the Nazi extermination of the Jews in the monument and museum which now stand on the site of the notorious Dachau concentration camp. But the camp was one in which men and women of some 20 nationalities suffered indignities and death and the memorial was designed to commemorate all of them, its sponsors explained to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today. That memorial was dedicated on Sunday in the presence of a group of Dachau survivors and some 2,000 local and foreign guests, among them Israel Ambassador to West Germany, Asher Ben-Nathan, Prince Bernhard of The Netherlands, Mayor Karl Schuetz of West Berlin and others including delegations from Soviet Russia and various Communist bloc countries.

It is estimated that 50,000 persons died at Dachau between 1933 and 1945, though only 30,000 of them were officially recorded. Only 3,000 Jews were found when the camp was liberated. The memorial monument in front of the museum of Dachau relics was sculpted by the Yugoslavian-Jewish artist Nid Glandor. It represents a group of twisted bodies in attitudes of anguish and agony. Underneath is the inscription, “May the example of those who were exterminated here between 1933 and 1945 because they resisted Nazism, help unite the living for the defense of peace and freedom.”

Militant left-wing German youth tried to disrupt the memorial observance with what appeared to be an anti-American demonstration. They broke into the ceremonies carrying flags with anti-American inscriptions and chanted anti-American and anti-Nazi slogans. When ushers ejected them, the youngsters started fistfights.

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