June 20



GERMANY:

Israel Honors Memory of Anti - Nazi "European Union"


Israel's ambassador to Germany presented medals of honor on Monday to
relatives of five members of the first ``European Union'' -- an anti-Nazi
resistance group whose members hid and fed Jews during World War Two.

This European Union, which had the same name but nothing to do with the
modern 25-nation bloc of European countries, was an underground,
Marxist-oriented group with around 50 to 60 German members, according to a
protocol prepared by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust museum.

To honor them, Israel's ambassador to Germany Shimon Stein presented
special Yad Vashem medals to surviving members of the families of
``European Union'' activists Georg and Anneliese Groscurth, Robert
Havemann, Paul Rentsch and Herbert Richter at a ceremony at Stein's
official residence in the German capital.

The group was founded in Berlin in 1939 and its members strove to
establish contact with the thousands of foreign slave laborers they came
into contact with on a daily basis. They aimed to create a unified
socialist Europe.

``The 'European Union' resistance group acted true to its name, trying to
make contact with slave laborers from the Soviet Union and France,''
Manfred Wilke, a professor of history at Berlin's Free University, told
guests at the ceremony.

Yad Vashem's protocol explains that the group's members went to great
risks to feed, hide and procure false documents for Jews on the run from
the Nazis, who wanted them all deported to concentration camps for
systematic liquidation.

In September 1943, the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, arrested the
group's leaders, including its founder and visionary, chemist Robert
Havemann.

Of those arrested, 37 were charged and 15 sentenced to death, though
Havemann's execution was postponed repeatedly. He survived and died in
communist East Germany in 1982.

Nearly half of the Jews documented to have been helped by the five
activists died in Auschwitz, the protocol says.

According to a spokesman for the Israeli embassy, Israel usually bases
such awards on the testimony of Jews. But in this case, Yad Vashem was
able to use Nazi court records themselves, in which the judges slammed the
defendants for helping Jews.

``How shameless the attitude of the four accused was. It is also clear
that they systematically supported Jews who were living illegally, even
feeding them. But not only that, they procured false documents so that
they could disguise themselves as if they weren't Jews but Germans,'' read
one example.

Another section of the decision refers to Havemann, saying he ``purchased
out of his own pocket for Jews black market butter, veal fat, cereals and
ration coupons for bread.''

The German government has never honored the European Union anti-Nazi
resistance group.

(source: Reuters)