STATE DEPT TO REVISE WEBSITE AFTER SWC PROTEST OVER DOWNPLAY OF GERMANY’S ROLE IN HOLOCAUST

The Simon Wiesenthal Center welcomed the decision by the U.S. State Department to revise its website only hours after an official Wiesenthal Center protest. The offensive portion of the website minimizes Germany’s role in the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust.

A letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Center, called attention to a section of the “Background Notes” for the Federal Republic of Germany which only contains a general reference to the crime of genocide and the establishment of concentration camps, but omits the mention of the principal victims of the Holocaust and that the real purpose of the camps was to eliminate Europe’s Jews.

Hier also pointed out that was most offensive was that for other countries such as the Sudan, Rwanda and Cambodia where genocides were committed, their “Background Notes” go into specific details regarding the number of victims.

"We intend to change the language in order to more accurately reflect historical facts," said J. Christian Kennedy, State Department special envoy for Holocaust issues.

The letter from Rabbi Hier stated, in part, “In our time when antisemitism and Holocaust revisionism are rampant throughout the world and haters like Ahmadinejad and Khaled Meshaal either deny the veracity of the Holocaust or claims its numbers are exaggerated, the official website of the United States State Department should emphasize and not minimized the centrality of the Holocaust.” Hier urged Secretary Rice to “correct this distortion and order a redraft of the section on Germany.”

The “Background Note” for Germany can be seen at:
www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3997.htm

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, and the Council of Europe.

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