FEATURED JOBS
Comments (0)A German court has paved the way for the release of secret files about executed Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.
In a decision announced last Friday, the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig found the German government’s objections to release of the documents too vague.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has a final chance to prove that release of the files could endanger foreign policy interests, according to German news reports. Otherwise, some 3,400 pages of documents could finally see the light of day due to the efforts of a freelance journalist in Argentina.
Gabriele Weber of Buenos Aires requested the release of the documents from the German Federal Intelligence Service from the 1950s and 1960s, which have not been released for 50 years under orders from the Chancellery.
The Chancellery had claimed their publication would damage German relations with countries in the Middle East and compromise Germany’s cooperation with foreign intelligence services. Sections of the documents would have to be blacked out to protect private individuals and the identity of informants, according to reports in the German press.
The Chancellery and intelligence agency must now decide whether there are additional objections.
Eichmann, who oversaw the mass deportations of European Jews to death camps, fled Germany after World War II and was captured in 1960 in Argentina by the Israeli Mossad spy agency. He was tried and executed in Israel in 1962.
One of Eichmann’s sons, the Berlin-based archeologist Ricardo Eichmann, told Der Spiegel Online that “Whatever is in those files, the time has come for them to be accessible to scholars.”
South African Jewish Leaders Meet with Goldstone
A delegation of senior South African Jewish communal leaders met with Richard Goldstone.
Monday’s meeting, to discuss Goldstone’s participation in the 2009 United Nations fact-finding mission into the Gaza war and the contents of his committee’s report, was held as part of a deal brokered between the South African Zionist Federation and Goldstone that allowed the judge to attend his grandson’s bar mitzvah on May 1 in the absence of threatened protests.
Goldstone, who now resides in the United States, initially had said he would not attend the religious ceremony.
According to a news release issued by the South African Zionist Federation, the discussion was “frank and open” and included “the hurt and concerns of the South African Jewish community regarding the findings and impact of the report.”
The Goldstone report accused Israel and Hamas of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.
Explaining his participation in the mission, Goldstone said he had spent much of his professional life championing international criminal justice.
“It would have been hypocritical for me to continue to speak out against violations of international law and impunity for war crimes around the world but remain silent when it came to Israel simply because I am Jewish,” he said.
Goldstone noted that it was the first time that the U.N. Human Rights Council had offered Israel the opportunity to tell its story to a U.N. inquiry and said he had hoped it might herald a new approach by the council.
“But sadly for everyone, the Israeli government squandered that opportunity,” he said. “Had Israel provided us with credible information to respond to the allegations we received, they would have been given appropriate consideration and could potentially have influenced our findings.”
In his opening statement, South African Zionist Federation Chairman Avrom Krengel expressed “our deep disappointment and dissatisfaction with your involvement, as a South African Jew, in leading the United Nations fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict.” Referring to “glaring disparities” in the way the parties had been treated by the mission, Krengel said certain aspects of the report were “highly prejudicial to Israel while being extremely favorable towards Hamas.”
Krengel said that without Goldstone’s credentials as a Jew and pre-eminent human rights jurist, the report “would have lacked all credibility and would have failed to gain any traction.”
European Teens Prep for Jeurovision
Jewish youth are gathering in Stockholm for the Jeurovision song contest.
Modeled after the popular Eurovision Song Contest, the 11th annual Jeurovision scheduled for May 9 will bring together hundreds of teenagers from across Europe to compete.
The contestants, all Bnei Akiva participants, will come from 10 countries: Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Italy, Holland, Austria, Germany, Hungary and Belgium. The participants come from various religious and secular backgrounds and feature songs being performed for the first time.
The event is sponsored by World Bnei Akiva in cooperation with the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization.
Though last year’s French delegation won the contest, Bnei Akiva tapped Stockholm to host this year’s event in order to salute Scandinavian Jewry and as a way to respond to growing local anti-Semitism and anti-Israel rallies.