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75-514: The Mauthausen Committee defines itself as follows: With these sorts of standards, the Committee does work concerning the memorial of NS-dictatorship and the reprocessing of it. It focuses on work with young people and cares about educational and scientific maintenance of the Mauthausen concentration camp and its satellite camps. A European Youth Meeting Centre is being planned. As part of

150-561: A Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine." WJC officials lobbied UN member states in favor of the adoption of UN General Assembly Resolution 181 of 1947, which called for the creation of a Jewish and an Arab state in Palestine. On 15 May 1948, the day of Israel's proclamation of independence, the WJC Executive pledged "world Jewry's solidarity" with the fledgling Jewish state. In Montreux, Switzerland, delegates from 34 countries attended

225-672: A boycott of products from Nazi Germany. Given the weakness of the League of Nations vis-à-vis Germany and the successful efforts by the Nazi regime to stave off an economic boycott, neither approach proved very effective. Following the November 1938 Kristallnacht pogroms against Jews in Germany in which at least 91 Jews were killed and many synagogues and Jewish shops were destroyed, the WJC issued

300-782: A comment which said: "The truth is that what stands in the way of aid to the Jews in Europe by the United Nations is not that such a program is dangerous, but simple lack of will to go to any trouble on their behalf." Only in January 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the setting up of the War Refugee Board , whose purpose was to "rescue victims of enemy oppression who are in imminent danger of death". The World Jewish Congress also tried – mostly in vain – to convince

375-537: A liaison office to the League of Nations in Geneva, first headed by the Swiss international lawyer and WJC Legal Advisor Paul Guggenheim and later by Gerhart Riegner , who initially served as Guggenheim's secretary. In its fight against growing anti-Semitism in Europe, the WJC pursued a two-pronged approach: the political and legal sphere (mainly lobbying of the League of Nations and public statements) and organizing

450-673: A magazine named Edition Mauthausen . The Austrian Mauthausen Committee was honored with the Karl-Renner-Award in December 2013. Co-recipients were founder of the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service Andreas Maislinger and Irene Suchy. Oliver Rathkolb delivered the laudatio. Austrian Service Abroad The Austrian Service Abroad ( German : Auslandsdienst Österreichs ) is a non-profit organization funded by

525-615: A program of Jewish postwar demands. All representative committees together formed the Advisory Council on European Jewish Affairs, which came into being at a conference in New York City in June 1942. The WJC also lobbied Allied governments on behalf of Jewish refugees, and urged US Jewish organizations to work towards waiving immigration quotas for Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. In 1940, General Charles de Gaulle ,

600-777: A statement: "Though the Congress deplores the fatal shooting of an official of the German Embassy in Paris by a young Polish Jew of seventeen, it is obliged to protest energetically against the violent attacks in the German press against the whole of Judaism because of this act and, especially, to protest against the reprisals taken against the German Jews after the crime." With the outbreak of World War II in September 1939,

675-701: Is about peace on the basis of honesty regarding the past. The program was founded in 1992 and has been a part of the association Austrian Service Abroad since 1998. It remembers the crimes of Nazism and commemorates its victims. Gedenkdiener work for Holocaust remembrance memorials and institutions as well as research facilities. Examples are the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, the World Jewish Congress in New York ,

750-571: Is also a partner of the Israeli Volunteer Association partnering on the initiative Understanding Israel in conjunction with the Austrian Ministry of Social Affairs. Gedenkdienst is the concept of facing and taking responsibility for the darkest chapters of one's own country's history while ideally being financially supported by one's own country's government to do so. Gedenkdienst has the acknowledgment of,

825-465: Is an adventurer and does not represent "organized Jewry". He pleaded to either deport or draft Hillel Kook in order to stop his activism, which organized Jewry strongly opposed. Eleanor Roosevelt, many from Hollywood and Broadway and many in Congress supported the Bergson Group, including Senator Harry Truman for a while. On 9 August 1944, Leon Kubowitzki (later Aryeh Leon Kubovy), the head of

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900-743: Is non-confessional and non-partisan. The Austrian Service Abroad cooperates with the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The servants abroad are obliged to cooperate with the Austrian embassy in their respective host country. Some of partner institutions or organizations are the Auschwitz Jewish Center in Oświęcim, Poland, Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Israel, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles, United States,

975-822: The American Jewish Congress and the Comité des Délégations Juives (Committee of Jewish Delegations). The latter was established in March 1919 to represent Jewish communities at the Paris Peace Conference , and advocated for Jewish minority rights in various countries, including the negotiation of rights for Jews in Turkey in the Treaty of Sèvres (1920) and special agreements with smaller eastern European states. Headed by Russian Zionist Leo Motzkin ,

1050-610: The Austrian Social Service and the Austrian Peace Service . The organization provides young male Austrians a government-funded alternative to the compulsory military service by sending them to institutions of Holocaust commemoration, social service or peace promotion for a time period of at least 10 months. It also provides volunteers of all genders a platform to work in its partner institutions for 6 to 12 months, while being financially supported by

1125-542: The Comité des Délégations Juives was composed of delegations from Palestine, the United States, Canada, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, East Galicia, Romania, Transylvania, Bukovina, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Yugoslavia, and Greece, and funded mainly by the World Zionist Organization . However, the first impetus for the creation of the WJC came from the American Jewish Congress . In December 1917,

1200-727: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to assert its authority more forcefully vis-à-vis the Germans, and urged it to secure the status of civilian prisoners of war under the Third Geneva Convention on prisoners of war for those Jews that were confined to ghettos and Nazi concentration camps, which would have entitled the ICRC to provide care to them. However, the ICRC stuck to the view that it

1275-499: The International Committee of the Red Cross to protect Jews in Nazi-occupied countries. Under the auspices of the WJC, 18 committees were set up in the United States composed of exiled representatives of the different European Jewish communities under Nazi rule. The committees were modeled on the governments-in-exile, and their task was to provide moral and material support for Jews in the respective countries, and to prepare

1350-928: The Jewish Museum Berlin , the Auschwitz Jewish Center in Oswiecim or Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. In addition, Austrian Holocaust Memorial servants are also sent to serve in former refuge countries of the victim groups persecuted by the Nazis , for example to the Casa Stefan Zweig in Petrópolis (Brazil) or the Center of Jewish Studies Shanghai (China). The program annually confers the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award to actors "who have shown special endeavors for

1425-721: The Third World . Andreas Daniel Matt, the first Austrian social servant was sent in 2004 to a SOS children's village in Lahore (Pakistan). Since October 1998 hundreds of Austrian social servants have been assigned mainly to countries in Central and South America, Africa and Asia. Since 2018 the Austrian Service Abroad also partakes in the program Understanding Israel, sending young Austrians to do social service at child-care places and handicapped-care facilities in

1500-1086: The World Jewish Congress in New York, United States, the Center of Jewish Studies Shanghai in Shanghai, China, the Russian Research and Educational Holocaust Center in Moscow, Russia, the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Melbourne, Australia, the Tom Lantos Institute in Budapest, Hungary, the Ashraya Initiative for Children in Pune, India, and A chance for children in Zigoti, Uganda. The Austrian Service Abroad

1575-441: The apology for and the assumption of responsibility for atrocities done by one's own country's society in history as its basis. Gedenkdienst is about honesty with one's country's past and the desire to rectify past wrongs. Gedenkdienst is about providing people of the perpetrator's side a platform for education and going to the victim's side to serve the remembrance of the evil done and the commemoration of its victims. Gedenkdienst

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1650-480: The "concept of the Jewish people as a national entity, and authorized and obligated to deal with all problems affecting Jewish life". In the summer of 1933, following the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and his NSDAP in Germany, American Jewish Congress President Bernard Deutsch called on US Jewish organizations to support the establishment of a World Jewish Congress "to prove the sincerity of their stand" in favor of

1725-570: The AJC adopted a resolution calling for the "convening of a World Jewish Congress", "as soon as peace is declared among the warring nations" in Europe. In 1923, Motzkin visited the United States and addressed the AJC Executive Committee, "pleading for a World Conference of Jews to discuss the conditions of Jews in various lands and to devise ways and means for effective protection of Jewish rights". Conferences co-organized by Motzkin and

1800-727: The AJC leaders Julian Mack and Stephen Wise took place in 1926 in London and in 1927 in Zurich, Switzerland. The latter was attended by 65 Jews from 13 countries, representing 43 Jewish organizations, though the main Jewish groups in Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, as well as the American Jewish Committee , declined the invitation to attend. The First Preparatory World Jewish Conference

1875-745: The American Jewish Congress Julian Mack as honorary president of the WJC, Wise was appointed as chairman of the WJC Executive and thus de facto leader of the congress. Nahum Goldmann was named chair of the Administrative Committee. The WJC Executive immediately drew up a declaration urging the British government not to halt immigration to Palestine which was presented to British diplomats in Bern, Switzerland. The WJC chose Paris as its headquarters with

1950-609: The Austrian Service Abroad is about supporting life in an ethical, sustainable, global, responsible and permanent manner. World Jewish Congress The World Jewish Congress ( WJC ) is an international federation of Jewish communities and organizations, founded in Geneva , Switzerland in August 1936. According to its mission statement, the World Jewish Congress's main purpose is to act as "the diplomatic arm of

2025-636: The Austrian government for their work abroad. The Austrian Service Abroad is funded and supervised by the Austrian Ministry of Social Affairs and subject to the Austrian Federal Act on the Promotion of Voluntary Services ( Bundesgesetz zur Förderung von freiwilligem Engagement .) Before being sent out as Austrian Servants Abroad the candidates undergo a preparation period (typically 1.5 years) during which they are educated on

2100-563: The Austrian government which sends young Austrians to work in partner institutions worldwide serving Holocaust commemoration in form of the Gedenkdienst , supporting vulnerable social groups and sustainability initiatives in form of the Austrian Social Service and realizing projects of peace within the framework of the Austrian Peace Service . The Austrian Service Abroad is the issuer of the annually conferred Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award . The Austrian Service Abroad has its origin in

2175-511: The British Foreign Office refused to forward the telegram for the time being and called for the allegations to be investigated first. It was only on 25 November 1942 that the WJC was allowed to release the news to the world. On 28 July 1942, 20,000 people participated in a WJC-organized "Stop Hitler Now" demonstration at New York's Madison Square Garden. Nine months later, on 1 March 1943, an estimated 22,000 people crowded into

2250-532: The Centre for Peace, Nonviolence and Human Rights in Osijek, Croatia. At present, Austrian Service Abroad sends young Austrians to the following partner institutions: In 2006 Andreas Maislinger, chairman of the Austrian Service Abroad, initiated the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award (AHMA) . Winners: The core concept underlying the initiative of the Austrian Service Abroad is the concept of responsibility . Hereby

2325-423: The Congress establish a Department of Community Service which would be charged with aiding in the reconstruction of the spiritual and cultural life of Jews in liberated countries. Another resolution extended the gratitude of the gathering to the Vatican and to the Governments of Spain, Sweden and Switzerland for the protection they offered under difficult conditions to the persecuted Jews in German-dominated Europe. At

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2400-400: The German-occupied territories. Riegner had received his information from the German industrialist Eduard Schulte . His telegram read as follows: Received alarming report about plan being discussed and considered in Führer headquarters to exterminate at one fell swoop all Jews in German-controlled countries comprising three and a half to four million after deportation and concentration in

2475-409: The Holocaust, and advocated for the punishment of Nazi leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The World Jewish Congress notably took part in the formulation of the principles governing the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal and furnished evidence against Nazi leaders to the US prosecutors. On 19 August 1945, a conference of representatives of European Jews was organized in Paris, France by

2550-425: The Jewish community; it is to establish a real, legitimate, collective representation of Jewry which will be entitled to speak in the name of the 16 million Jews to the nations and governments of the world, as well as to the Jews themselves. The conference approved plans to set up the new organization in 1934, with headquarters in New York and European offices in Berlin, Germany. In a manifesto, delegates called upon

2625-426: The Jewish people and signaled its readiness to engage in negotiations with Jewish representatives and the State of Israel. "Unspeakable crimes have been committed in the name of the German people, calling for moral and material indemnity [ ... ] The Federal Government are prepared, jointly with representatives of Jewry and the State of Israel [ ... ] to bring about a solution of the material indemnity problem, thus easing

2700-436: The Jewish people to unite as the only effective means of averting danger. The Jews, the declaration said, had to rely on their own power with the assistance of such enlightened sections of the world which had not yet been saturated with poisonous anti-Semitism. It added: "The World Jewish Congress does not aim at weakening any existing organizations, but rather to support and stimulate them." The new organization would be based on

2775-481: The Jewish people". Membership in the WJC is open to all representative Jewish groups or communities, irrespective of the social, political or economic ideology of the community's host country. The World Jewish Congress headquarters are in New York City , and the organization maintains international offices in Brussels, Belgium ; Jerusalem ; Paris, France ; Moscow, Russia ; Buenos Aires, Argentina ; and Geneva, Switzerland . The WJC has special consultative status with

2850-452: The Nazi onslaught", to "fight for equal political and economic rights everywhere, and particularly for the Jewish minorities in Central and Eastern Europe", to support the establishment of a "Jewish National Home in Palestine" and to create "a worldwide Jewish representative body based on the concept of the unity of the Jewish people, democratically organized and able to act on matters of common concern". The WJC's precursor organizations were

2925-452: The Polish National Council of the Polish government-in-exile, held a press conference with WJC officials in London, where it was stated that an estimated one million Jews had already been murdered by the Germans. On 8 August 1942, the WJC's Geneva representative Gerhart Riegner sent a telegram to the US vice-consul in Geneva in which he informed the Allies for the first time about the Nazis' planned Final Solution to exterminate all Jews in

3000-453: The Second Plenary Assembly of the World Jewish Congress, held from 27 June to 6 July 1948. In 1949, the World Jewish Congress called on the newly established Federal Republic of Germany to acknowledge responsibility and liability of the German people for the wrongs inflicted on the Jewish people by the Nazi regime. In 1950, the WJC opened an office in Frankfurt to function as a "listening post" on developments in Germany. In representations to

3075-402: The United Nations Economic and Social Council . The World Jewish Congress was established in Geneva, Switzerland in August, 1936, in reaction to the rise of Nazism and the growing wave of European anti-Semitism. Since its foundation, it has been a permanent body with offices around the world. The main aims of the organization were "to mobilize the Jewish people and the democratic forces against

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3150-433: The United States, Britain and France, the WJC detailed Jewish moral and material claims on Germany. In 1951, Nahum Goldmann , at the request of the Israeli government, established the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany ( Claims Conference ). The same year, in a declaration approved by the parliament, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer recognized Germany's duty to make moral and material restitution to

3225-407: The WJC moved to Geneva to facilitate communications with Jewish communities in Europe. In the summer of 1940, by which time most of Europe had fallen under Nazi occupation, the headquarters were moved to New York to share office space with the American Jewish Congress, and a special WJC office was set up in London. The British Section of the WJC was tasked with acting as the European representative of

3300-441: The WJC opened a representative office in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The WJC's initial priorities included safeguarding Jewish minority rights, combating anti-Semitism in Europe, and providing emergency relief to Jews fleeing Nazi persecution. The WJC also concentrated on security for Jewish refugees and victims of the war. In 1939, the World Jewish Congress set up a relief committee for Jewish war refugees (RELICO) and cooperated with

3375-419: The WJC was allowed to save 4,500 inmates from the women's concentration camp at Ravensbrück. Approximately half of these women, who had been deported to Germany from over forty countries, were Jewish. At the end of the war, the WJC undertook efforts to rebuild Jewish communities in Europe, pushed for indemnification and reparation claims against Germany, provided assistance to displaced persons and survivors of

3450-432: The WJC's Rescue Department, relayed a message from Ernest Frischer of the Czechoslovak State Council to the US State Department urging the destruction of the gas chambers and the bombing of railways lines leading to the Auschwitz death camp. US Undersecretary of War John J. McCloy rejected the suggestion five days later, writing to Kubowitzki: After a study it became apparent that such an operation could be executed only by

3525-414: The WJC, Hilel Storch, established contact through an intermediary with SS chief Heinrich Himmler . In April, Norbert Masur of the Swedish Section of the WJC secretly met with Himmler at Harzfeld, around 70 kilometers north of Berlin. Masur had been promised safe conduct by Himmler. Through negotiations with the Nazi leader and the subsequent talks with the head of the Swedish Red Cross, Folke Bernadotte ,

3600-409: The WJC, whose leadership (Wise, Goldmann, Kubowitzki) traveled there from the US. Delegates from Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland attended the gathering. On 21 September 1945, Pope Pius XII received WJC Secretary General Leon Kubowitzki in audience, who recounted to the pope the "great losses" suffered by the Jews during the war and expressed gratitude for what

3675-421: The WJC. He said: "I must make clear that the congress is not a parliament nor an attempt at a parliament. It is nothing more than an assembly of representatives of those Jewries which choose to associate themselves in defense of Jewish rights. The congress will not be wholly representative until all Jews choose to be represented by it." Although the delegates elected the US federal judge and erstwhile president of

3750-412: The West German government provided the Claims Conference with 450 million deutschmarks for the relief, rehabilitation and resettlement of Jewish victims of Nazi persecution. Similar agreements were also signed with the State of Israel . Subsequent to these agreements, the Claims Conference continued to negotiate with the German government for amendments to the various legislative commitments and monitored

3825-417: The acknowledgement of the Austrian government, in particular by chancellor Franz Vranitzky in 1991, regarding the Austrian people's share of responsibility for the crimes committed by National Socialism during WWII . The initiative initially started in form of the Gedenkdienst in 1992. In 1998 the organization Austrian Service Abroad, named 'Association for Services Abroad' until 2006, was founded adding

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3900-407: The basis of mutual respect for the rights of each". In 1946, in a memorandum to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine drafted by WJC Political Secretary Alexander L. Easterman, the WJC declared that "the only hope of reviving the life and culture of the Jewish people lies in the establishment of a fully self-governing Jewish Homeland, recognised as such throughout the world; that is,

3975-431: The church had done to help "our persecuted people". Kubowitzki suggested a papal encyclical on the Catholic Church's attitude toward the Jews and a condemnation of anti-Semitism. "We will consider it," Pius XII reportedly replied, adding: "certainly, most favorably, with all our love". The WJC also urged the Vatican to assist in the recovery of Jewish children saved by Catholics during the Holocaust. The WJC also supported

4050-426: The diversion of considerable air support essential to the success of our forces now engaged in decisive operations elsewhere and would in any case be of such doubtful efficacy that it would not warrant the use of our resources. In November 1944, at the War Emergency Conference held in Atlantic City , USA, the WJC elaborated a program for the post-war period, which included calls for reparations from Germany to Jews and

4125-448: The east thus solving Jewish question once and for all stop campaign planned for autumn methods being discussed including hydrocyanic acid stop It was only several weeks later, on 28 August 1942, that WJC President Stephen S. Wise received Riegner's alarming message. The telegram was met with disbelief despite preexisting evidence for mass executions. The US State Department considered it "a wild rumor, fueled by Jewish anxieties", while

4200-521: The embattled Jews of Germany. After two more preparatory conferences in 1933 and 1934, the First Plenary Assembly, held in Geneva in August 1936, established the World Jewish Congress as a permanent and democratic organization. Elections for delegates to that assembly had to be according to democratic principles, namely secret, direct, and based on proportional representation. The 52 American delegates, for instance, were chosen at an Electoral Convention which met in Washington, DC, on 13/14 June 1936 and which

4275-435: The extermination of the Jews in German-controlled Europe". Throughout the war, the WJC lobbied the Allied governments to grant visas to Jewish refugees from Europe and to ensure the restoration of Jewish minority rights in areas liberated by the Allied forces. Despite the US State Department's opposition, the WJC obtained permission from the US Treasury Department , headed by Henry Morgenthau , to transmit funds to Europe for

4350-412: The foundation of the United Nations Organization in 1945. In 1947, the organization became one of the first NGOs to be granted consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). In 1947, an estimated 30,000 people attended the opening of the Latin American Conference of the World Jewish Congress at Luna Park, Buenos Aires , Argentina. Although its principal purpose

4425-532: The implementation of the various compensation and restitution laws. According to the Claims Conference, more than 278,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors received lifetime pensions under the German Federal Indemnification Laws. Germany expended a total of US$ 60 billion in satisfaction of Jewish claims. In 1952, the World Jewish Congress called on the Austrian government to intensify efforts for the restitution of heirless Jewish property. Austrian Chancellor Leopold Figl subsequently pledged to remedy Jewish grievances. At

4500-400: The initiative is guided by the ethics conceptualized by the Jewish philosopher Hans Jonas who defined the following supreme moral imperative: "Act so that the effects of your action are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life". By integrating the chronological dimensions of past , present and future , in addition to the totality of humanity and the full dimension of space ,

4575-472: The leader of the French government in exile, pledged to the WJC that all measures taken by the Vichy regime against the Jews would be repudiated upon France's liberation. In late 1941 and early 1942, Western diplomats and journalists received scattered information about Nazi massacres of many thousands of Jews in German-occupied Poland and Russia. However, the news was difficult to confirm. In June 1942, Ignacy Schwarzbart , one of two Jewish representatives on

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4650-452: The memory of the Shoah". Austrian social servants serve vulnerable social groups, support the economic and social development of the host country and contribute to environmental protection. They are active in projects relating to street-children, homeless people, educational projects and children villages, elderly and handicapped care, medical care, etc. An example type of project is the improvement of drinking water supplies in countries of

4725-419: The organization. Some of the personnel who worked in the WJC's European offices immigrated to the United States when the WJC moved its headquarters there. At the New York office in the 1940s, the major departments were: Political Department, Institute of Jewish Affairs (research and legal work), Relief and Rescue, Department for Culture and Education (or Culture Department), and Organization Department. In 1940,

4800-399: The rescue and assistance of persecuted Jews. According to a report by Riegner, these funds helped to bring 1,350 Jewish children from the occupied countries to Switzerland and 70 to Spain. However, at the Bermuda Refugee Conference in 1943, both the United States and Britain refused to relax their immigration policies, not even for British Mandatory Palestine. In reaction, the WJC published

4875-433: The same hall and a further 15,000 stood outside at a WJC rally addressed by Wise, Chaim Weizmann , New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and others. However, the US government did not heed calls to rescue European Jews. Early in 1944, US Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau stated in front of President Roosevelt that "certain officials in our State Department" had failed while it would have been commanded by duty to "prevent

4950-401: The same time, it expressed regret at the fact that 'deplorably little has been done to have Axis civilians under the power of the United Nations exchanged for Jews in ghettos, internment, concentration and labor camps.' Related video: Stephen Wise addresses the World Jewish Congress War Emergency Conference in Atlantic City, November 1944 In February 1945, the head of the Swedish office of

5025-428: The state of Israel in cooperation with the Israeli Volunteer Association. Austrian Peace servants are stationed in organizations serving the achievement and protection of peace in connection with (armed) conflicts. They work, for example, at the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation in Japan, the John Rabe House in Nanjing, China, the Dayton International Peace Museum in Ohio, USA, the Peace Palace in The Hague and

5100-519: The subject-matter relevant to their place of assignment. They are also being trained with professional skills via contributing to the work-flow of the organization. Once a year the president of Austria and the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs invite all Austrian Servants Abroad of the year before departure for a reception at the Hofburg and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs respectively. The Austrian Servants Abroad are commonly referred to as "little ambassadors of Austria". The Austrian Service Abroad

5175-421: The use of heirless Jewish property for Jewish rehabilitation. Also at that conference, Stephen S. Wise was elected president of the World Jewish Congress. Delegates decided to embark on a $ 10,000,000 fund-raising effort for relief and increased political activity throughout the world. The news agency JTA also reported the following: The closing session of the conference also adopted a resolution recommending that

5250-421: The way to the spiritual settlement of infinite suffering," Adenauer said. On 10 September 1952, WJC and Claims Conference head Nahum Goldmann and the West German federal government signed an agreement embodied in two protocols. Protocol No. 1 called for the enactment of laws that would compensate Nazi victims directly for indemnification and restitution claims arising from Nazi persecution. Under Protocol No. 2,

5325-399: The „Comité International de Mauthausen", the Austrian Mauthausen Committee has intense contacts with various partner-organisations, for example the "Amicale de Mauthausen in Paris" and organises various commemorations. The committee has a few sub-organisations in various counties of Austria to possess a kind of network and to commemorate the satellite camps of Mauthausen in Austria. There is

5400-681: Was "in no position to bring pressure to bear upon governments", and that the success of its work "depended on discreet and friendly successions". The Holocaust era president of WJC, Stephen Wise , used his great influence with Jewish communities nationwide to energetically obstruct the Bergson Group 's strategical level rescue activism. Later president of the WJC Nachum Goldman told the State Department (per department protocol) that Hillel Kook (aka Peter Bergson )

5475-453: Was attended by 1,000 representatives from 99 communities in 32 US states. The World Jewish Congress's expressed goal was Jewish unity and the strengthening of Jewish political influence to assure the survival of the Jewish people and promote the establishment of a Jewish state. 230 delegates representing 32 countries gathered for the first WJC assembly. Addressing a press conference in Geneva, Stephen S. Wise assailed German Jews for opposing

5550-403: Was held in Geneva in August 1932. A preparatory committee was headed by Zionist Nahum Goldmann , who was one of the leading advocates of the establishment of an international Jewish representative body. Goldmann defined the purpose of the World Jewish Congress as follows: It is to establish the permanent address of the Jewish people; amidst the fragmentation and atomization of Jewish life and of

5625-741: Was to defend the rights of Jews in the Diaspora , the WJC always actively supported the aims of Zionism , i.e. creation of a Jewish National Home in British Mandatory Palestine . The Yishuv , the Jewish community in British Mandatory Palestine, was represented at the First Plenary Assembly of the WJC in 1936, which affirmed in a resolution "the determination of the Jewish people to live in peaceful cooperation with their Arab neighbors on

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