55 countries sign declaration against anti-Semitism

GERMANY: A group of 55 European and North American countries have signed a declaration denouncing "new forms and expressions…

GERMANY: A group of 55 European and North American countries have signed a declaration denouncing "new forms and expressions" of anti-Semitism, and promoting new efforts to teach children about anti-Semitism and the Holocaust.

The Berlin Declaration was signed after a two-day conference organised by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and chaired by the Bulgarian Foreign Minister Mr Solomon Passy.

He closed the conference yesterday by presenting Mr Joschka Fischer, his German counterpart, with the yellow star his grandfather wore as a Jew in wartime Bulgaria.

"My grandfather used to say that the time will come when we and the Germans will be allies again. Then we shall return the yellow star to the Germans. I am happy that now I can fulfil the legacy of my grandfather, and return the yellow star which he wore."

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Mr Fischer said: "I will preserve this present."

He added: "We all share the responsibility to fight anti-Semitism in our countries; that is the most important message of this conference."

The signatories to the Berlin Declaration "condemn without reserve all manifestations of anti-Semitism, and all other acts of intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief, wherever they occur".

The declaration went on to condemn attacks on synagogues and other religious places.

Signatories also said "unambiguously" that political developments in Israel and the Middle East were no justification for anti-Semitism, and pledged to agree to gather information and statistics about anti-Semitic and other hate crimes.

The head of the Committee of Jews in Germany, Mr Paul Spiegel, warned that EU enlargement could complicate the fight against anti-Semitism.

"These states will see themselves confronted with their only partially-addressed history of collaboration with criminal regimes, particularly under Nazi occupation," he said.

A recent EU report said attacks on Jews increased in several member-states in 2002. The sharpest rise was in France, where incidents rose six-fold.