Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 7, 1990 TAG: 9005070039
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WEST BERLIN LENGTH: Short
It was the congress' first meeting on German soil since it was founded in Switzerland in 1936.
Early Sunday, right-wing militants fought with foreigners in street clashes in East Berlin. The official East German news agency ADN said five people were injured and eight people were arrested.
There has been a rise in racist violence in East Germany, including rampages through restaurants and public squares by neo-Nazi skinheads, usually jobless youths with closely-shaved heads shouting epithets against Jews and foreigners.
In opening the conference, Bronfman noted that Tuesday will be the 45th anniversary "of the defeat of Nazism, a victory for all mankind."
He also reminded the 500 delegates that Berlin was "the capital of the Third Reich, the womb of Hitler, a Satan whose name is associated forever with unspeakable horror."
It was in Berlin in January 1942 that leading Nazi officials plotted the Third Reich's so-called Final Solution to exterminate Jews worldwide.
Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis between January 1933 and May 1945, along with millions of others.
by CNB