Outcry against law that will protect

Press, 29 November 1978, Page 9

Outcry against law that will protect

■NZPA-Reuter East Berlin A committee representing, I survivors of the World War. | Two Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz has \ called on West Germany to i suspend a law that would (prevent the prosecution of ■ war criminals from January, 1980. At the end of a three-day; ‘conference in East Berlin, ‘ ‘the International Auschwitz! ‘Committee said West Germany’s statute of limitations! would “reward those who; have been cleverly hiding (for the past 33 years. “That would be the same ‘ as a rehabilitation of Nazism and would encourage the, (activities of old and new'

Nazis,’’ the committee said. Several prominent West German politicians have also called for the suspension of the statute, which rules that after 30 years murder charges can no longer be pressed. It would mean that from 1980 suspected war criminals would not have to stand trial. The committee expressed concern at what it said was a revival of Nazism in the West, and called for a ban on Right-wing extremist publications. It also called for nuclear disarmament, saying: “What 1 for millions was yesterday ' the gas chambers of Auschwitz could tomorrow be the atom bomb, hydrogen bomb, or neutron bomb.”