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.