
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 8, 1990                   TAG: 9005080585
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/3   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WEST BERLIN                                LENGTH: Short

GRIEVING, ANGRY JEWS GATHER AT SITE OF HOLOCAUST'S PLANNING

Mixing anger with grief, World Jewish Congress leaders today honored the memory of the 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust at the mansion where high-ranking Nazis plotted their so-called Final Solution.

"I will not pray here, because I personally believe that God turned his face away from this place, as he did from Auschwitz," congress President Edgar Bronfman said. "Nevertheless something must be said."

In Hebrew, German and English, participants read words penned by death camp survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel:

"What does a Jew today feel in this place, marked by evil and malediction? Fear and trembling, anger - incommensurate anger, helplessness and grief, infinite grief."

The ceremony at the Wannsee Villa came on the final day of the World Jewish Congress meeting in Berlin, the first time the organization has met on German soil. Some delegates from around the world stayed away from the meeting, saying the trip to the heart of Nazi tyranny would be too traumatic.

After the ceremony, the congress leaders went to East Berlin for a meeting with East German Prime Minister Lothar de Maiziere.

The democratically elected East German parliament, in a dramatic gesture, last month accepted a share of responsibility for the Holocaust. For more than four decades, the now-ousted Communist authorities had denied any responsibility for the deaths of 6 million Jews.

The ceremony at the Wannsee Villa was held on the 45th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe.

It was at the villa, where on Jan. 20, 1942, officials of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich planned the extermination of the Jews.

by CNB