Saturday, December 18, 2010

Germany agrees to pay $80 mil to support Auschwitz memorial's maintenance

From "This Week in Germany":

From 1933-45, Germany was overtaken by an evil dictatorship that persecuted groups it viciously targeted as "other" (gypsies, communists, homosexuals, socialists, the disabled, and Jews). The Shoah, in which six million European Jews perished at the hands of this insane Nazi dicatorship, is something every single German citizen learns about in school.

"No country has done more to atone for its past than Germany has," Susan Barocas, director of the annual Washington Jewish Film Festival said earlier this month during a post-screening discussion of the film "2 or 3 Things I Know About Him" with its German director, Malte Ludin, and German Ambassador Klaus Scharioth, who pointed out that Germany currently has the fastest-growing Jewish population in Europe.

According to an agreement signed in Berlin on December 15, Germany is to pay 60 million euros ($80 million) towards the upkeep of the Auschwitz memorial at the site of the former Nazi concentration camp in Poland.

"With this contribution, Germany recognizes its historic responsibility to preserve the memory of the Holocaust and pass it on to future generations," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in underscoring his country's commitment to this ongoing process.












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