American Jewish Committee Gratified at Withdrawal of Complaint on Belzec Project

7/3/2003

WASHINGTON, July 3 -- The American Jewish Committee is gratified that a suit filed against it concerning the construction of a memorial project at the site of the Belzec death camp in Poland has been dismissed by the plaintiff himself.

The plaintiff in the case, a Holocaust survivor residing in New Jersey decided to withdraw his complaint once he learned the true nature of the project and the support it has received from rabbinic authorities in Israel and the Diaspora. The memorial being established at Belzec will provide permanent protection to the 33 mass graves of Holocaust victims, while properly commemorating their fate.

Between February and December 1942 close to half a million Jews were murdered in one of the most lethal killing centers ever established. Jews from throughout the Galician region as well as elsewhere in Europe were deported to Belzec and directly to their deaths. At the end of 1942, when the Germans had concluded that all Jews in the region had been murdered, they sought to hide evidence of their crime. Mass graves were opened and the bodies burned and crushed. The gas chambers were dismantled and trees were planted on the site. Only a handful of victims survived Belzec, and only one was able to offer a full account of what he had seen.

For decades the site has been exposed and neglected, with little indication of the horrors that took place. In November 2002, the American Jewish Committee agreed to assume the role initially undertaken by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum as partner with the Polish Government. An international panel of judges had selected a design for the memorial that also serves to encircle and protect the entire site of the camp and its mass graves. The entire site will be permanently protected, names of the destroyed communities will be identified, and for the first time an orientation and information center will explain the full story of Belzec and the Holocaust to visitors. The project is being funded jointly by the Polish Government and a private donor campaign, spearheaded by Miles Lerman. It is supported by some of the foremost authorities in the rabbinic world, including the Office of the former Chief Rabbi of Israel and the Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe.

The American Jewish Committee, founded in 1906, is an internationally respected human relations organization dedicated to protecting the rights and freedoms of Jews throughout the world, working for the security of Israel and a deepened understanding between Americans and Israelis. Through research, advocacy and programming AJC defends democratic values and seeks their realization in American public policy, fights all forms of bigotry, supports human and civil rights, promotes pluralism and intergroup understanding.