U.S. Withdrawal
from UNESCO
an Immediate
Obligation
Commentary, Page 2
THE JEWISH NEWS
A Weekly Review
I
of Jewish
Events
Conscience
of America
Remains Sullied
in Georgia's
Leo Frank Case
Editorial, Page 4
Copyright © The Jewish News Publishing Co.
VOL. LXXXIV, No. 18
17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075 424-8833
,$18 Per Year: This Issue 40c
December 30, 1983
Georgia Leo Frank Decision
Condemned by Jewish Units
Israel to Seek Extradition
of Nazis in U.S.; Deadline
for Viorel Trifa Confirmed
JERUSALEM — Israeli Attorney General Itzhak Zamir has con-
firmed that the Ministry of Justice is presently in the final stages of
documenting an official request to the United States to extradite
to Israel at least one Nazi criminal," the World Jewish Congress
reported. Meanwhile in New York, Neal Sher, director of the Justice
Department's Office of Special Investigations, has told the WJC that
Valerian (Viorel) Trifa of Grass Lake, Mich., who was stripped of
American citizenship last year, will be shipped to Romania if no other
country accepts him by Oct. 7, 1984.
Zamir confirmed widespread reports of proposed Israeli action
against Nazi criminals still at-large, during a high-level symposium
arranged by the Israel Branch of the WJC on the subject "The State of
Israel and The Punishment of World War II Criminals." Opening the
discussion, Yitzhak Korn, vice chairman of the Israel Branch, recalled
the early steps taken by the WJC during World War II, to make sure
that the Nazi criminals would not remain unpunished.
Justice Haim Cohn, former Justice of the Israel Supreme Court,
took the view that the legal problems in bringing war criminals to trial
were overwhelming and therefore the question of the "usefulness" of
such trials arose. Justice Cohn expressed great skepticism at the possi-
bility of Israel presently becoming an active factor in the punishment of
war criminals.
Attorney General Zamir took a different view and an-
nounced formally the intention of the Justice Ministry to pro-
ceed with the extradition request to the U.S. He said, "It was the
firm intention of the Israeli government to take concrete steps
against several of the hundreds of Nazi criminals still at liberty."
Sher confirmed to American leadership of the WJC in New York
that his office had indeed been holding discussions with Attorney
(Continued on Page 5)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Major American Jewish organiza-
tions expressed shock and outrage over the decision by the
Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles to deny post--
humous pardon to Leo Frank, a Jewish factory superinten-
dent who was convicted of the murder of a 13-year-old girl in
Atlanta in 1913 and who was lynched two years later by a
mob in one of the nation's worst outbursts of anti-Semitism.
The American Jewish Committee is asking the Georgia
Legislature to overturn the decision.
The State Board chairman, Mobley Howell, said last
Thursday, after the decision was announced, that Jewish
organizations that had sought the exoneration of Frank
failed to show beyond doubt that he was innocent. In a Writ-
ten statement, Howell said:
"After an exhaustive review and many hours of delibera-
tion, it is impossible to decide conclusively the guilt or inno-
cence of Leo Frank: There are many inconsistencies in the
LEO FRANK
accounts of what happened."
The Board of Pardons reviewed the case after Alonzo Mann, now 85 years old, who
was a 14-year-old office boy at the time Mary Phagan, an employee of the National
Pencil Co. was killed, told reporters last year that he had seen the factory's janitor, Jim
Conley, carrying the limp, unconscious body of the young girl to the factory basement.
The parole board claimed that Mann's statement did not provide any new evidence.
Jewish organizations had also presented hundreds of pages of documentation to prove
that Frank, was innocent.
Theodore Ellenoff, chairman of the American Jewish Committee's board of governors, said
the parole board's decision " is a second miscarriage of justice in this tragic case. If there is any
serious doubt about Frank's guilt — and the statement last year of surviving witness Alonzo
Mann at the very least creates a serious doubt — Frank should have been exonerated."
Jacqueline Levine, chairperson of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory
Council, said the board's decision "is more than a commentary on this specific case. By its action,
the Pardons and Paroles Board did not remove the lingering dark cloud that has continued to
cast its shadow, for the past 70 years, over an open and pluralistic American society."
Nathan Perlmutter, national director of the Anti-Defamation League of Bnai Brith, de-
, (Continued on Page 5)
Yad Vashem Exhibits Art of Death Camp Inmates
By RALPH LISTER — Israel Govt. Press Service
"Deportation" by Joseph Richter, 1943, Sobibor,
The artist died fighting with the partisans against the
Nazis after escaping Sobibor.
JERUSALEM — Yad Vashem has recently opened an
art museum to exhibit works produced by inmates of the
concentration camps during World War II.
The impressive layout of the memorial complex and
the permanent exhibit leave a lasting impression. The new
art museum adds a poignant dimension. It converts the
documentary and photographic evidence of the Holocaust
into a stunning series of personal artistic testimony which
leaves the visitor stunned and drained. At Theresienstadt,
the Nazis "model" ghetto, Jewish artists were compelled to
produce representations of the camps for propaganda pur-
poses. This gave the artists access to paper and drawing
instruments with which to produce their own testimony. "I
still hear voices," remembers a painter who survived. "You
will live. Paint us, so at least we'll live on paper."
Survival on paper was, for most of the artist-
inmates, the only life granted them. Their art reveals
dormitories crowded with bunks, inmates in their
striped uniforms, exhausted, emaciated. Yet, in spite
(Continued on Page 5)
"Infirmary for Children" by Karel Fleischmann,
1942 Theresienstadt. The artist and his wife were gas-
sed to death at Auschwitz in 1944.