Gerhart M. Riegner(1911-2001)
Riegner was a World Jewish Congress official in Geneva when he cabled
the U.S. vice consul in the Swiss city on Aug. 8, 1942, describing
Adolf Hitler's plan to deport an estimated 4 million Jews to Eastern
Europe to annihilate them. The State Department tried to verify
Riegner's telegram with the Vatican and the Red Cross. Both said they
knew of mistreatment and deportations of Jews, but not of a mass
extermination plan. For the rest of his life, Riegner was haunted by
the belief that many of the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis might
have been saved if the United States and Britain had reacted promptly
to his warning. Riegner was secretary-general of the World Jewish
Congress from 1965 to 1983 and then became its honorary vice president.
He also worked on improving relations between Israel and the Roman
Catholic Church, and was present at the signing of the accord
normalizing relations between the Holy See and Israel in 1993. At the
United Nations, he campaigned to rescind the 1975 General Assembly vote
that Zionism equals racism. The resolution was annulled in 1991.