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.