PARIS PAYS HOMAGE TO AUSCHWITZ SURVIVORS

Some 1,500 persons, relatives and children of the few survivors were greeted by the Cabinet Minister of War Veterans Hamlaoui Mekachera and the Cabinet Minister of the Rights of the Victims Nicole Guedj, in presence of the ambassadors of Israel, Germany and Poland.

Simone Veil, President of the French Foundation for the Remembrance of the Holocaust, herself a former prisoner in Auschwitz, warned against the trend to incriminate everybody by saying "of course, no one tried to stop the Nazis. Today the trend is to say that everybody is guilty, pointing at those who should have known, did not know or erred when they thought that the priority was to end the war. One wants to implicate everybody, without any discrimination, by implying that (the Western leaders) did not do a thing, did not take a single risk, are also guilty. I wish to say 'No'. Churchill and Roosevelt are not Hitler, they did not do absolute evil. I want to express my gratitude to all those who saved us."

Recalling memories of Auschwitz, Simone Veil brought the assistance to tears when she said, "While I was toiling at an embankment work not too far from the gas chambers, I saw a lawn. It was in May, pansies were growing in the grass. One could also see baby cloths, crutches, baby carriages, bottles, all things that belonged to those who were already dead."