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THOUGH HE was born a few years after World War II, Dresden Mayor Herbert Wagner nevertheless is haunted by the atrocities that were perpetrated against the Jews in his town.
This was one factor which brought him here this week to participate in the 11th Annual Jerusalem Conference of Mayors. The conference, hosted by Mayor Teddy Kollek, was sponsored by the American Jewish Congress, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the Hanns-Seidel Foundation and the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies.
Committed to strengthening ties between Dresden and Israel, Wagner, 42, said this week that the communist leadership had made many mistakes, which he intends to rectify.
"We Germans have a special responsibility to the Jews," he said, "because Germany has done so many bad things to Jews."
Of Dresden's 500,000 inhabitants, only 30 to 40 are Jewish. When 70 Soviet Jews arrived in the city last December, the city immediately provided housing for the newcomers. Wagner said he hopes to persuade them to continue on to Israel. Wagner noted that there was no specifically anti-Israel feeling among Germans of his generation, "but some tolerated Saddam Hussein."
ALSO BURDENED by memories of the Holocaust is Erno Kolosvori, the mayor of Gyor, located on the western border of Hungary, halfway between Budapest and Vienna. About 5,000 of the Jews in his city were murdered...