AJC praises Buchenwald visit
The American Jewish Committee is lauding President Obama for visiting the former Buchenwald concentration camp today, saying it "underscores America's commitment to preserving the memory of the Holocaust."
The group's statement says, "At one point during his visit, in the presence of Holocaust survivors, including Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, President Obama declared that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Holocaust-denying President of Iran, should come to Buchenwald. 'I have no patience for people who would deny history. The history of the Holocaust is not something speculative,' Obama said.
The AJC's full statement is after the jump:
AJC Praises President Obama at Buchenwald
June 5, 2009 – New York – AJC praised President Barack Obama’s visit today to the former Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany, saying it underscores America’s commitment to preserving the memory of the Holocaust.
“Both in his Cairo speech yesterday and at Buchenwald today, President Obama stressed that the horror of the Holocaust is emblazoned upon the history of the Jewish people and, indeed, the entire world,” said AJC Executive Director David Harris.
At one point during his visit, in the presence of Holocaust survivors, including Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, President Obama declared that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Holocaust-denying President of Iran, should come to Buchenwald. "I have no patience for people who would deny history. The history of the Holocaust is not something speculative," Obama said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel accompanied the President at the camp site.
“The sight of an American president and a German chancellor standing together at the location where the most unimaginable cruelties took place gives us hope,” said Harris. “The postwar U.S.-German partnership, a link AJC has been committed to for decades, epitomizes the values of democracy and tolerance that underlie the close transatlantic relationship. Those bonds are the best defense against the possibility of future tragedies.”
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Mark Talisman
06/05/09 06:10 PM
It is appalling that the AJC, Bnai Brith, ADL, Reform Movement, World Jewish Congress have no time or inclination to recognize the poor condition in which 25 percent of all surivivor currently living in the United States and over 50 percent of those living in Israel and many more in the FSU are living in poverty unable to cre for themselves, provide the necessities of life and are not on some support system as most safety nets have been shredded. This as billions has been negotiated in the name of survivors and family members who were murdered during the Shoah.
One wonders what the definition of Jewish Defense Agency has come to mean.
Is it not time for some of the funds so negotiated still unused be used in to solve this human tragedy for survivors in need who have, need it be said, suffered enough already.
And do not say funds should be raised for them or existing family agencies should care for them. Those systems are the province of the aged populations who are not survivors to eke out care for them. Survivors should have had access to funds already negotiated and moreso other funds which should be negotiated further with governments tu udate levels of services since the original bases of current funding was the early 1950s when survivors were much younger and free from what is said to be five to ten times worse than the regular aged populations.
Where is torah as street language more importantly in all this tragedy?
Shame, shame!
Mark Talisman
Washington DC.