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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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prisoners held in Damascus, the Israelis know who
their few friends are.
On March 24, Victor Shem Tov, the Minister of
Health, awards me the Medal of the Revolt of the Ghetto, saying:
"This is a particularly symbolic event.
Here in Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Israel, in the presence of
delegates of French Jewry, an Israeli minister decorates a young German woman
to commemorate, thirty years after the end of World War II, the terrible
hecatomb of European Jewry.
"This ceremony symbolizes the fact that the
Jewish people will never forget, nor will non-Jewish people forget, thirty
years after the end of the war, the horrors of Nazism, which, known to the
younger generation only through books, might be forgotten in criminal neglect
if we do not renew our memories. This event also symbolizes that in spite of
evidence to the contrary, there is a universal conscience sensitized to the
destiny of the Jewish people and the State of Israel.
"You, Madame
Klarsfeld, are a living example of both these aspects. You have not forgotten
the horrors of the past, and you are sensitive to the present condition of the
Jewish people, as you have proven by going to Damascus to act on behalf of our
imprisoned soldiers.
"Madame Klarsfeld, as I greet you here today,
allow me to pay homage to a daughter of the German people who has been
campaigning tirelessly year after year to bring Nazi criminals before man's
judgment, who has unceasingly borne witness to her solidarity with the Jewish
people in the whole tragedy that envelops our generation.
"Madame
Klarsfeld, allow me, as I award you this Medal of Courage symbolizing the
resistance of the ghettos, to thank you, now after the difficult trials we have
just gone through, for having again launched a campaign for the Jewish people
and ultimately for the honor of the German people."
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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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Back |
Page 299 |
Forward |
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