AP News, January 18th, 2007
President Jacques Chirac honored nearly 2,800 French people who rescued Jews from the Nazis, in a ceremony at the Pantheon in central Paris on Thursday.
Chirac paid tribute to members of a group, known as the "Righteous of France," who risked their own lives to help Jews escape the death camps. Twelve years ago Chirac became France's first president to recognize the French government's role in the mass deportation of Jews during the Holocaust.
"Thousands of French men and women, from all social classes and professions, and from throughout the political spectrum, made _ without questioning it _ the right choice," Chirac said at the ceremony in the hallowed Pantheon, where some of France's most honored figures are buried.
Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial has inducted more than 21,000 people worldwide into its "Righteous Among the Nations" honor roll of non-Jews who saved Jews. The group's list of inductees includes 2,725 French citizens _ 240 of whom are still alive. Seventy-four of them attended Thursday's ceremony.
Families of deceased inductees also attended, as well as some of the Jews who were rescued.
Thursday's ceremony came just hours after a court in Lyon in central France convicted a far right politician of questioning the Holocaust _ a crime in France _ at an October 2004 news conference.
Bruno Gollnisch, the second highest official of France's National Front party, was sentenced Thursday to a three-month suspended sentence and ordered to pay a fine of about $6,450 for "disputing a crime against humanity."
