The Holocaust Remembered
Concentration camp survivors and others in Los Angeles on Tuesday observed Holocaust Remembrance Day with ceremonies to honor the 6 million Jews killed by Nazi Germany. At the Simon Wiesenthal Center in West Los Angeles, a Justice Department official said the search for Nazi war criminals will continue, and pledged never to allow Austrian President Kurt Waldheim into the United States.
“You must not give Hitler a posthumous victory,” said Neal Sher, director of the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations.
Addressing a primarily youthful audience that also included survivors carrying signs with the names of communities from which Jews were taken, Sher noted that Waldheim is working to lift the ban that the American government placed on him from entering the United States because of his service in the German army during World War II.
Other speakers included Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner and state Controller Gray Davis.
In Pan Pacific Park in the Fairfax District, ground was broken on a grassy slope for the city’s first memorial to Holocaust victims.
Composed of six columns of polished black granite, the memorial will carry bronze bas-reliefs and inscriptions depicting the horrors of the era.
It was designed by artist Joseph Young, who designed the Triforium near City Hall.
A fund-raising campaign for the $1.4-million project is being headed by Jona Goldrich, a Los Angeles real estate developer.
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