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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 16, 1994                   TAG: 9411160121
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: JERUSALEM                                LENGTH: Short

AUSTRIA SORRY FOR WWII ROLE

``No word of apology can ever expunge the agony of the Holocaust,'' President Thomas Klestil said. ``On behalf of the Republic of Austria, I bow my head with deep respect and profound emotion in front of the victims.''

The speech before Parliament capped Klestil's three-day visit to Israel, the first by an Austrian head of state.

The two countries had frosty relations during the 1986-92 presidency of Klestil's predecessor, Kurt Waldheim, who served as an officer in the German army during World War II and was posted in the Balkans, near the site of Nazi atrocities.

For years, Austria rejected responsibility for the persecution of Jews on its territory, arguing that it was the first victim of German aggression. Adolf Hitler's Germany annexed Austria in 1938.

Klestil said his countrymen were reappraising their past.

``We know full well that all too often, we have only spoken of Austria as the first state to have lost its freedom and independence to [Germany], and far too seldom of the fact that many of the worst henchmen in the Nazi dictatorship were Austrians,'' he said.

Many Austrians enthusiastically supported the Austrian-born Hitler. About 70,000 Austrian Jews were killed in the Holocaust. About 15,000 Jews live in the country today, compared with 180,000 before 1938.