http://www2.haaretz.co.il/breaking-news/jewishnews/347677.stmmasthead |
Jerusalem, January 14, 2001 [Picture
of Paul Spiegel added by
website]Jewish
leader sees German anti-Semitism on
rise Reuters BERLIN -- Jews are
being portrayed in some German circles as
"money- grabbing" exploiters who
"conspired" to force the construction of a
memorial to victims of the Nazi Holocaust,
a Jewish community leader said
Sunday. Paul
Spiegel, chairman of the Central
Council of Jews in Germany, said in an
interview with the Berliner Morgenpost
newspaper that his faith in the country
had declined in the year since he took
control of the small but growing Jewish
community. "People are no longer shy about hurling
their anti-Semitism directly into my face
or to Jews," said Spiegel, the leading
spokesman for the interests of 90,000
Jews. There were about half a million Jews
in Germany before Hitler took power
and organized the mass slaughter of
European Jews. "We are being slandered as
money-grabbing," Spiegel said. "The
monument for murdered European Jews, which
the German parliament wanted, is portrayed
as a 'Jewish conspiracy'." Berlin Mayor
Eberhard Diepgen led an
unsuccessful effort to block the memorial
in central Berlin with the argument that
protective security costs would be
prohibitively high. The project has
nevertheless been plagued by long
delays. "And the Holocaust compensation fund
for forced laborers is being portrayed as
Jewish exploitation," he added, referring
to the e4.5 billion fund created by
government and industry to compensate
Eastern European laborers exploited by the
Nazis. Related item on this website -
Index
on the origins of
anti-semitism
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