Cardinal von Preysing, Bishop of Berlin, has issued a formal statement terming the extermination of more than five million Jews
by the Nazi regime " a crime with
out precedent," and calling on the German people to take a stand against racial hatred " which still is not wholly extinct."
The Cardinal's statement was issued on the 11th anniversary of the day when the burning of synagogues all over Germany signalled the beginning of the most cruel phase in the persecution of Jews under the Nazi regime.
" I take occasion to refer to it," says the Cardinal, " because time and again, here and there in Germany symptoms manifest themselves that racial and ethnic hatred still is not totally extinct."
CRIMES ELSEWHERE The Cardinal's statement, pointing out that crimes against humanity are being committed elsewhere in the world, goes on to say:
" But these things do not absolve us from the duty to recall in our memories what has been done by Germans, and to make an effort, wherever we see hatred and fanaticism, to take a stand against it.
" We hope and pray that the wrong done to millions of people somehow can be righted with the
thousands left behind. May God grant us peace and reconciliation."