WORLD : World Jews Meet at Villa That Spawned WWII ‘Final Solution’

Mixing anger with grief, World Jewish Congress leaders today honored the memory of the 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust at the mansion where high-ranking Nazis plotted their “Final Solution.”

“I will not pray here, because I personally believe that God turned his face away from this place, as he did from Auschwitz,” said congress President Edgar M. Bronfman. “Neverthless something must be said.”

In Hebrew, German and English, participants read words penned by death camp survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel:

“What does a Jew today feel in this place, marked by evil and malediction? Fear and trembling, anger--incommensurate anger, helplessness and grief, infinite grief.”

The ceremony at the Wannsee Villa came on the final day of the World Jewish Congress meeting in Berlin, the first time the organization has met on German soil. Some delegates from around the world stayed away from the meeting, saying the trip to the heart of Nazi tyranny would be too traumatic.