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BETWEEN WOODWARD AND JOHN R SHOWROOM: MON-FRI 8 AM - 5 PM SAT 8 AM - 3 PM Sincere Best Wishes for a Happy, Healthy and Peaceful Passover Berkley Health Foods 8herwaDd studios George Ohrenstein Professional Interior Designers Tel-Twelve Mall • 12 Mile & Telegraph Daily 10-9, Sunday 12-5 • 354-9060 A Happy & Healthy Passover To All Our Friends, Relatives And Customers 2823 Coolidge, Berkley 543-3505 Jewelers Ltd. • Certified Gemologist • American Gem Society HARVARD ROW MALL Lahser and 11 Mlle Rd. 353-3146 DEDICATED TO ■, ..."* KNOVA.EDGE.Ermocs ANO CONSUMER PROTECTION. 128 FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1989 pril 20 marks the 100th birthday of Adolf Hitler. Should his evil memory be allowed to recede quietly form the minds of mankind, or are there things that Jews should ponder on this day, and bring to the attention of the world? A case can be made that Hitler and his works are by now so remote that the centenary of his birth should be of little more than anti- quarian interest. Forty-four years after the downfall of his fearsome-em- pire, neither German govern- ment — East or West — re- tains any recognizable Nazi vestige: one is communist, the other democratic. The pseudoscientific racism and virulent anti-Semitism that Hitler promoted are in disrepute among educated people around the world. Even the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union that was spawn- ed by Hitler's war seems to be disappearing in the era of glasnost. And before long, on- ly senior citizens will remember the Hitler years; others will have to rely on books, movies and Holocaust memorials. Yet there is good reason for not ignoring Hitler's birthday this year. The evils that he personified, while perhaps changed in form, have not disappeared. They may, in- deed, even be spreading. Anti-Semitic incidents are on the upsurge in the United States. The well-publicized burning of Torah scrolls in Brooklyn last fall was just the tip of the iceberg. This trend is not just a mat- ter of misguided teen-agers out for thrills. Organized gangs of Skinheads now operating in most American cities harass and beat up blacks and other minorities, not just • Jews. And the fact that a Ku Klux Klan leader ran first in an election for the Louisiana legislature is cause for foreboding. In Europe, widespread anx- iety over the influx of foreign laborers has provided an op- portunity for right-wing political forces to regroup. Earlier this year, the Republican Party in West Berlin, under the leadership Lawrence Grossman is director of publications for the American Jewish Committee. of a former SS officer, won 7.5 percent of the vote on an anti- foreigner, ultranationalist platform. In Austria, revelations about President Kurt Wald- heim's Nazi past seem to have made him more, not less, popular among his fellow citizens. Much more dangerous, however, is the work of cer- tain reputable mainstream scholars, especially in Ger- many, who minimize the destruction of European Jewry by denying that it resulted from any concerted Nazi plan, or by suggesting that the Germans may have had some justification for ac- ting against the Jews. But surely, the most distressing remnant of Hitlerism in 1989 is the in- tense pressure that is being exerted on the State of Israel, both in the administered ter- ritories and in the interna- tional community. Israel's very creation in 1948 was intended to provide Jews with a homeland so that future potential Hitlers would not be able to menace them. Israel also symbolizes the defeat of Hitler by testifying to the ultimate triumph of the Jews over him and his followers. And while all peo- ple of good will wish to see the Palestinian problem solved fairly, Jews must make it clear to the world that any weakening of the State of Israel, any doubt cast on its legitimacy, carries the work of Hitler forward. Recalling Hitler's birth 100 years ago, then, is not just an exercise in historical recollec- tion. By alerting us to certain dangers, it can also help us set a Jewish agenda for the present and the future. D NEWS Allies Extend Neo-Nazi Ban Bonn (JTA) — The Western Allied Powers who have governed West Berlin since the end of World War II renewed a ban on the ac- tivities of the National Democratic Party, a right- wing group widely believed to be neo-Nazi. The NPD, as it is known, can operate legally in the rest of West Germany as a right- wing party. In the Frankfurt municipal elections last month, the . I -4