Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir speaks at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in January, 1962. (Stars and Stripes)
TOKYO — Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir said Friday Israel will never forget the Nazi World War II murder of six million Jews but does not want to hold an entire generation of Germans responsible.
"The Jews must be careful not to fall into the crime of racism. The German people must not be despised just because they are Germans," Mrs. Meir told an audience of some 250 members and guests at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan here.
Mrs. Meir arrived here Thursday for a week-long unofficial visit at the start of a 3-week East Asian tour. She will also visit the Philippines, Burma, Thailand and Cambodia at the invitation of their governments.
Friday morning she visited Emperor Hirohito and Empress Nagako and Foreign Minister Zentaro Kosaka and was guest of honor at a dinner given by Kosaka Friday evening.
In response to a correspondent's question as to why Israel limits her cultural ties with West Germany, the 64-year-old diplomat said the relationship between the Jewish people and the Germans is "rather complicated."
"We are trying to find the middle way between two things. Not to forget, and forgive so quickly and at the same time not to pass on the guilt to an entire generation of Germans."
West Germany, she said, has made a sincere attempt to create a new Germany, "and we hope they succeed in doing so."
Asked whether she felt the Soviet Union was systematically trying to exterminate Jewish culture within its borders, Mrs. Meir said Israel "is not happy, to put it mildly," with the Soviet suppression of Hebrew and Yiddish publications, but hopes the situation will change.
"But," she added, "it would never enter our minds to connect that with systematic extermination of the Jews as a people."
Mrs. Meir described Israel's position in world affairs as one of "non-alignment" rather than neutrality. Israel, she said, will continue to uphold the rights of self-determination and independence for all peoples.
Answering. a reporter's question as to Israel's position on the Indonesia-Netherlands conflict over Dutch New Guinea, she said the question should be settled by negotiation, rather than conflict.
"It is rather shocking," she added, "that some countries voted against a resolution that included self-determination for the people of New Guinea."
Mrs. Meir said that modern Israel was built on, memory, faith and determination.
"Israel is the only monument worthy of the six million Jews who were killed because they had no country of their own."
