Holtzman Blasts Waldheim’s Election; Says Jews Must ‘remain Vigilant in the Face of Continued Anti-s

Brooklyn District Attorney and former United States Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman last week blasted Kurt Waldheim and the Austrians who elected him President and warned Jews to “remain vigilant in the face of continued anti-Semitism.”

Holtzman, who during her four terms in the House of Representatives authored legislation barring accused war criminals from entering the U.S., told a group of furriers at a luncheon sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith that the law she wrote should be extended to include Waldheim.

She participated in a protest rally at the Justice Department in Washington just days before Waldheim’s June 8 election in an effort to pressure the agency to bar the former United Nations Secretary General from entering the United States.

SEES SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE

Holtzman said there is sufficient evidence that Waldheim committed war crimes. He was accused of murder by the U.N. War Crimes Commission and he targeted villages for reprisal that were subsequently destroyed, she said.

Waldheim also gave the precise number of Jews on the Greek Island of Corfu to his superiors and all those Jews ended up in death camps, she asserted. “How could a man like this be honored and raised to the highest standard,” she asked.

Waldheim’s election is part of a “growing trend to deny the Holocaust,” Holtzman said. The election and events like Reagan’s visit to Bitburg last year show that Austria and the world have learned no lessons from the Holocaust.

“Continued indifference to Waldheim’s election will send a message that people can continue to kill Jews with impunity,” she said.

The United States government has rejected this indifference and has changed its policy according to Holtzman. While some 10,000 Nazis received sanctuary in the U.S. after World War II, today the government has expelled ten accused Nazis from this country, thirty others are on trial and hundreds of others are under investigation, Holtzman said. “We know the consequences of failure to be committed to justice,” she said.