An urgent plea to the Soviet and East German Governments to make public immediately all their documents on Nazi war criminals was made here this morning by Morris B. Abram, U.S. Representative, before the United Nations Commission on. Human Rights.
The Commission today interrupted the examination of a draft convention on religious intolerance to deal with the question of punishment of war criminals and of claims against humanity. Mr. Abram, who is also president of the American Jewish Committee, discussed the question recently with top West German federal authorities. Previously, he had been on the Nuremberg war criminals prosecution staff.
Mr. Abram pointed out that evidence in the Auschwitz and other war crimes trials had indicated that Soviet archives still “contain a considerable volume of war crimes material, and that East German authorities had declared that vast quantities of war crimes evidence were still in storage there. “Until this has been investigated and the results made available to the Federal Republic of Germany, no reasonable person can expect effective prosecution of the many Nazi criminals who may lived,” he told the Commission.
In a tribute to Nazi war crimes victims, Mr. Abram urged that no government seek to make propaganda profits of the war crimes against humanity, which are now universally denounced. “The best possible action on behalf of the victims,” he declared, “is to make the Universal Declaration of Human Rights a living and enforceable truth.” In an obvious reference to the Soviet Union and East Germany, he scored those governments who revealed “records of reprehensible Nazi criminals only after they had achieved respectable prominence. A war criminal is as despicable before he sneaks into prominence as after,” Mr. Abram declared.
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.
