The World Assembly to Commemorate Jewish Resistance and Combat During World War II, which will convene in Jerusalem October 2-6, will be the largest assembly ever of its kind with some 25,000 participants expected from all over the world, according to Deputy Minister Dov Shilansky, who is head of the Assembly’s organizing committee.
The Assembly, under the patronage of Premier Menachem Begin, will bring together survivors of the Holocaust and resistance fighters as well as Jewish soldiers who served in the armies of the Allied forces who fought against the Nazis, Shilansky told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. He said that some 1.4 million Jewish soldiers served in the Allied armies, half a million of them in the U.S. armed forces alone. He said that delegations representing these soldiers will attend the Assembly.
In addition, Shilansky said, the Assembly’s organizing committee decided to invite all the officers who took part in the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps to attend the Assembly in Jerusalem. "We are inviting these officers, Jews and non-Jews alike, to come to Jerusalem with their children and grand-children," Shilansky said. He said that special invitations will be extended to David Eisenhower, grandson of the late American President, and to the son of the late French General and President Charles de Gaulle.
SEES ASSEMBLY AS A LANDMARK EVENT
"As both a citizen of the State of Israel and a survivor of the Holocaust, I see the forthcoming Assembly as a landmark event which will send a message across the world, " Shilansky said.
"Our message will be that we, a people whose eradication was sought with a brutality unprecedented in history, now gather in the heart of the free Jewish State. We gather to stand witness to the past, to transmit our warning to the present, and to hand on the ever-burning torch of Jewish endurance to the future."
Shilansky said that at least one-third of the participants– about 7,000 –will come from abroad while the rest of the participants will be survivors of the Holocaust, resistance fighters and soldiers in the Allied armies who are now citizens of Israel. One of the largest contingents will be from South Africa, with about 1,000 men and women, Shilansky said.
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.
