The Task Force For International Cooperation On Holocaust Education, Remembrance And Awareness

2:15 P.M. (EDT)

MODERATOR: This will be very informal since there are so few of us. Margery Friesner, isn't it?

QUESTION: Yes.

MODERATOR: -- is from ANSA, the Italian News Agency. Mike Van Rigger -- he's from The Washington File. We expect Elaine Monaghan from The Times of London, but she's not here yet and since Margery is under time pressures, I think we should begin. Shall I -- self introductions or --

AMBASSADOR BELL: Well, my name is Randolph Bell. I am the Ambassador at Large and Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues at the State Department.

MR. BERGER: My name is Arthur Berger. I am the Director of Communications and External Affairs at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

AMBASSADOR BELL: We wanted to call your attention to the plenary meeting of our task force next week because it's part and parcel of the creation of a community of values in the Euro-Atlantic world. You will have noticed a Senate vote this morning on the seven NATO invitees, which was a positive vote.

What we have been doing on issues of coming to terms with the past and providing measures of justice for victims of the Holocaust and other historical abuses has been an integral part of the effort to enlarge institutions like NATO in Europe. More than 20 countries will be sending delegations to this plenary at the ambassadorial level or higher.

When I say creation of a community of values, we have in each of the seven NATO candidate-countries and in Central and Eastern Europe, more broadly, made clear that when you do business in an institution like NATO, you do it by appealing to the cooperation of your friends and allies on the basis of shared goals and values. And we have stressed that this is a practical, as well as a moral issue.

The Taskforce for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education and Remembrance Research, known by the less weighty name of the International Task Force, has been a premier venue for cooperation on these issues, and governments across the region have found that they can grasp the difficult issues of: What happened during the war? What did our country do? What did it not do?" as well as: What are the lessons of this for what we are about to do in Europe?

They can better grasp this in common than they can singly. So it served that important purpose latterly, but it actually goes back to 1998, and was formed at the instance of the Swedish Government, has continued working ever since, now has 14 full members. Luxembourg will make application to join the task force at this meeting, and there is every reason to expect that there will be consensus to accept it. Membership to outlets thereafter will continue to expand.

The plenary will be addressed first by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and then by Madame Simone Veil, noted survivor and a statesperson, herself. It will realize some 50 projects, which are practical measures addressing the preservation of sites, scholarly research, school curricula, training programs for military and diplomatic officers and government officials -- things that actually change hearts and minds and help to build democratic and pluralists societies. And that is, in a nutshell, what we anticipate next week.

But on the side of that agenda will, of course, be considerable discussion of the way ahead in the region among government officials and their representatives. Non-governmental organizations are also heftily engaged not only from this country, but from every one of the countries participating.

MR. BERGER: There is one thing I would like to add to that. When a country faces its own history honestly, it can face the future more confidently because it realizes that it is dealing with a known set of what it has done, understanding it, telling its population that, "This is what our involvement was during the second World War, an aspect of the Holocaust, and now we really have a way of dealing with that history positively." As we've done, for example, at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, when you go through the exhibition you see documentation of how the United States acted in the period of the 1930s and the 1940s, first, as leader among nations, as the leader of the allied forces in liberating Europe, but also before that time, before the war began, as a country that had questions about itself, whether it was willing to accept refugees from Europe who were seeking a place to come to, a place of safety. And we do deal with that in a very honest way.

When the American military forces come across the concentration camps and the killing centers, they don't call themselves liberators. We do today. They call themselves -- they were trying to liberate Europe. They were trying to defeat Nazi Germany and its collaborator nation. But, at the same time, they say, "We came across something we didn't know what it was like, what it was all about."

Soldiers in the field really didn't understand that history. Today, Americans of all ages do understand much more about the history because we do face that period honestly. We try to share our history. We try to work together with so many other countries, together with, not only within our own delegation, but with other countries, both those who are of Western Europe, as well as, as Randy said, the newer democracies and those who are aspiring democracies, the new members or soon to be members of NATO, the expanded European Union, countries that are interested, not just in remembering what happened to the victims of the Holocaust on one day, a year, but bringing that history into their daily education because it can teach them something about themselves and about the values for the future for strengthening their own democracies.

AMBASSADOR BELL: May I just note, in connection with that, one of the things which will also be on the agenda of which the U.S. is chair, will bring forward is the meeting which will occur in Vienna on June 19th and 20th in the framework of the OSCE, an official OSCE specialized meeting on anti-Semitism. And the Task force will offer its support and endorsement to that meeting, as well. So that, again, is looking forward and deriving from the past, best practices and measures for dealing with problems in the present and future.

MR. BERGER: If I could bring up one other thing that may be of interest to you, on Wednesday morning, as Randy said, the plenary session takes place with two really outstanding speakers. But on that evening, beginning at 6:00 p.m., and I invite you to that as well, at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, we're going to be hosting a special evening with a roundtable discussion of eminent participants from the United States, Deborah Lipstadt; from Israel, Yehuda Bauer; Feliks Tych, the head of the Jewish Historical Institute in Poland; Patrick Amieux*, who is the head of the French delegation and a senior French ambassador; and Ambassador Randy Bell to talk about the responsibilities that we have as individuals, as participants in organizations, and as representatives of our governments, on how we face contemporary atrocities, how we take a look at the world where there is danger of genocide remaining almost 60 years after the end of the Second World War.

MODERATOR: Thank you.

AMBASSADOR BELL: Questions? Oh, by the way, the session with Mr. Armitage and Madame Veil is, I believe, open press.

QUESTION: And when is that? That's Wednesday?

AMBASSADOR BELL: That's Wednesday morning.

MR. BERGER: 10:00 a.m., I believe. The State Department. The Loy Henderson, isn't it? We'll be sending out an announcement through State Public Affairs about that.

AMBASSADOR BELL: Or just address, if you have any questions about it, directly to him or to Randolph Bell at the State Department.

QUESTION: I'm going to, I would like to ask you to go back for one who is totally uninformed about this. You spoke about the agenda, but you didn't speak about the event. Exactly what, where and when it is going to happen?

AMBASSADOR BELL: Well, let me just tell you how the Task force works. The Task force, like OSCE, has a rotating chair and countries have the chair for a period, for a year. The United States, in February, took this over for its year. France had the chair before that. Other countries -- Germany, the Netherlands -- have had the chair in the past, and Sweden, of course.

We, as part of our year, will hold at least one plenary session of the entire Task force, possibly two, and maybe a specialized meeting, which would look at the future work and future agenda of the Task force. So that's kind of its regular rhythm.

This Task force meeting, this plenary in Washington, is an important one because it comes in the context of the expansion of European institutions. And the countries, which are already in those institutions and are welcoming the others in, have seen the Task force and its meetings as an important instrument in that process. So that's, I think, how you should see it.

QUESTION: So this is one of the plenary -- this is this year's plenary meeting?

AMBASSADOR BELL: This is the Washington plenary of the Task force this year in Washington.

QUESTION: Thank you. Are there other plenary --

AMBASSADOR BELL: No, no. Well, it's during the U.S. year, so naturally it would be in our capital.

QUESTION: In Washington. Okay. And the dates?

AMBASSADOR BELL: The date of the plenary session itself will be next Wednesday, the 14th. There will be meetings of the subordinate breakout working groups in the days preceding, on Monday and Tuesday. There will, in fact, on Sunday be a joint session between the task force and the leadership conference held by the American Jewish Committee, which brings to Washington leaders of Jewish communities from around Eurasia as well as a host of government officials.

QUESTION: I really hadn't considered -- I was not aware of the existence of the Task force or the (inaudible) history that --

AMBASSADOR BELL: Well, we have handouts for you, which can provide considerable background knowledge.

QUESTION: Let me ask you a couple of questions in terms of the structure and the way it functions. Except for Argentina, it seems, and Israel, of course, it seems to be totally European-based.

AMBASSADOR BELL: Well, that's because most of the Holocaust is associated -- the history of the Holocaust is European associated.

QUESTION: Sure. But, in other words, there was not any -- an intention to, you know, you're talking about Holocaust education, and Holocaust (inaudible).

AMBASSADOR BELL: It's much more universally applicable -- right.

QUESTION: I wonder, are there -- are there recruitment efforts in terms of joining or -- for this country?

AMBASSADOR BELL: Well, it's an expanding membership and an expanding circle that is by no means limited to Europe. That said we have been very careful in bringing countries in to make clear to them that it's not just a credential. If you come in, you have to do the work. You have to get into one of the working groups and you have to, you know, take on liaison relationships with countries not yet in the circle and help them to finance and design projects. And we have been very clear that, of course, you have to pay your dues.

QUESTION: So it's $25,000?

AMBASSADOR BELL: Right.

MR. BERGER: So it's beyond paying dues on a monetary level, it's also paying dues and making a commitment to adhere to the terms of the Stockholm Declaration, which means you will have a National Day of Remembrance for the victims, you will work on education at all levels of society, and you will commit to opening your archives so that historians will be able to understand more fully what took place in your country, or in some cases, for example, countries that are not part of the Task force have archives from the Soviet era -- places like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan -- and they have just begun to open them as well. The city of Shanghai has a municipal archive that tells a lot about Holocaust history and the Jewish community that was present there at that time.

QUESTION: Yeah, and it's usually (inaudible) of America.

AMBASSADOR BELL: And it's expanding its focus, so defined by the Stockholm Declaration and the mission statement, clearly also, you know, is applicable to more than merely that.

Take, for example, the three Baltic countries where history involved first, the Soviet annexation then Nazi rule, then re-annexation; in other words, three historical cataclysms. The historical commissions working in those countries, which are often closely interrelated with their Task force delegation, look at both eras. When, as part of looking at one's past, one looks at the thorny and difficult issues of property and property restitution in order to frame laws and implement them, in many of the countries where the task force operates/ the Nazi and Communist eras are closely intertwined.

So, in point of fact, it isn't just the Holocaust and it isn't just Europe. It's, of course, the universal applicability of a unique historic cataclysm.

QUESTION: But when you said that you're hoping that Luxembourg will be the next one in.

AMBASSADOR BELL: They have made application to join.

QUESTION: Right. But I'm just trying to -- in the process; do you actively recruit the countries? How do countries find out about the existence of it and how is the liaison established where, let's say, the Chairman or the Executive Director of the Task force, or someone, meets with representatives of --

AMBASSADOR BELL: In practical effect, it's a mixture of the two. Some countries both inside and outside Europe, have, themselves, knocked on its door because their own internal politics and their own internal societal development has brought these issues to the fore. Argentina has wanted to be associated with this Task force. In some instances, because of the need of the European institutions, we and our European partners have been keen to encourage countries to join. So it's a mixture of the two.

And will it expand the membership? My own impression is, yes, definitely.

MR. BERGER: I think it's useful also to give an example; for example, Croatia, which the United States has had some relationship with and which, until just a few years ago, had never had a democratic government, is just beginning to really expand its democratic society and, at the same time, as a remnant of the last Balkan war between the Croatians and the Yugoslav Central Government when there was still a Yugoslavia about eleven years ago, the Jasenovac Concentration Camp was about to be overrun. Someone from the camp, the director of the museum at the camp, took the materials from there to save them, hid them in a basement in Banja Luka, Bosnia, and the museum found out about it through the help of several of our embassies in the region.

And through a cooperative effort and the agreement of both the Croatian Government, the Bosnian Government, the Republika Srpska prime minister, managed to get all that material back to the United States for one year's conservation and cataloging. Since that time, we have been able to work with Croatia in helping them to tell the history of that camp and of the Holocaust in Croatia in a very honest, forthright way. And it's not a pleasant history, as you probably know.

So they are an applicant, as well, to the Task force. And that was an outgrowth of that. Other countries like Luxembourg approached us. We didn't approach them. They had been working on doing the research on what happened to the Jewish community and Holocaust restitution in Luxembourg, and it was just a natural that they came to us and said, "Gee, we don't understand why we're not a member of the Task force. We'd like to become one."

AMBASSADOR BELL: We also note that the attendance at this event this year is, I think, instructive in the respect that considerably more countries than our members will attend this plenary. And that's always been the case. For some countries, the process has been one of, first we will be a liaison partner, or we will associate ourselves in the pursuit of an individual project, and then we become full members.

QUESTION: Are you -- do you expect any -- apart from Argentina, do you expect other representation from other parts of the world, even as observers?

AMBASSADOR BELL: At this event?

QUESTION: Yeah.

AMBASSDOR BELL: I know of nobody else.

QUESTION: Okay. And two -- I'm sorry to -- there's two other things. Just the fact that --

QUESTION: My list is getting (inaudible) --

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

QUESTION: No, no, no, no. Then go ahead, because I have a long list after.

(Laughter.)

QUESTION: Why Sweden? Why was Sweden the initiator of this? How did that happen?

AMBASSADOR BELL: Well, it was an interest--

QUESTION: I hope this will help you.

QUESTION: No, no, your questions are interesting.

AMBASSADOR BELL: The Prime Minister, Mr. Persson, himself, and you know it was a wider initiative than the Task force. There is another institution called the Stockholm Four which meets annually, and it looks at not only the lessons of the Holocaust, but more particularly means of building tolerance and pluralism in the world, conflict resolution mechanisms, et cetera. So there were a set of initiatives, which the Swedes undertook.

Now, to be sure, those happened to work in constructive confluence with things that the world, particularly the North Atlantic world, were doing at that junction. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, all the change in our world since 1989, and the opening of archives that came in rapid fashion, focus on history became both inevitable and in increasing measure, actually desirable, however hard it was.

And that, of course, involved Holocaust history. So there, you may recall, was obviously not merely the focus on Holocaust assets: the Swiss banks, the negotiations with Germany, Austria and France, but also focus on the role of the Vatican, which became an issue, focus on what happened in the Communist era and what didn't happen then, what were the harpings of history in schools and in societies generally. And some of that came to focus at that Stockholm event in 1998 (inaudible).

QUESTION: What is the Task force's relationship with the Vatican, if any?

AMBASSADOR BELL: There's no direct, institutional relationship with the Vatican.

QUESTION: I mean, you haven't been involved in some of the campaigns if (inaudible) the history threatening to open the Archives --

AMBASSADOR BELL: Generally, the Task force would advocate open archives everywhere, including the Vatican and is on record as having done that. Arthur, do you have --

MR. BERGER: There is not a formal relationship, as I understand, for the Task force. The museum, however, has been approaching and has been working with the Vatican in trying to get the archives opened and to have historians from the museum, for example, as well as outside historians, look at the material.

The museum, for instance, is trying to become the major repository of primary documents of Holocaust history for the world. And as such, it does not take original documents, but we arrange for the microfilming, for the copying of pertinent archives. So right now we're working with 39 countries around the world from as far-flung as China to Argentina and Paraguay, and all the countries of Europe and the former Soviet Union, in trying to copies of those archives in one central place so that historians, who are doing research, will find it much easier to access the materials.

QUESTION: Once again, the next question I have just has to do with my own ignorance.

AMBASSADOR BELL: That's fine.

QUESTION: You talked about Shanghai. Were these foreign Jewish communities or Chinese Jews? Are there Chinese Jews? Is there such a thing?

AMBASSADOR BELL: There used to be an ancient Chinese Jewish community, but what we're talking about, really, are Jewish communities that began in the 1930s. There were two groups, in fact, of Jews that went to Shanghai --

QUESTION: From Europe?

AMBASSADOR BELL: From Europe. One was in the period of the 1930s. These were primarily German Jews who saw that as a place of refuge en route to who knows where, or maybe as a place to stay for generations. They were welcomed. They set up their community. But then in 1940-41, there was another group of Jews, and these were primarily Polish Jews who, after the Nazi invasion of Poland, went on to escape. Some Jews were able to escape from the German occupation to Lithuania, which was at that time, still under Soviet domination, until June of 1941.

And during that time, in late 1940, early 1941 there were two very heroic diplomats in Lithuania. One was the Honorary Consul of the Netherlands, Jan Zwartendijk. The other was a Japanese diplomat, Chiune Sugihara, who, together, prepared diplomatic visas for as many people who approached them. And there were thousands of people who were saved.

QUESTION: An Italian did that somewhere.

AMBASSADOR BELL: That may very well have been elsewhere, but there, it was not.

QUESTION: No, no. It was Australia.

AMBASSADOR BELL: The Soviet Union allowed Jews from Lithuania who had transit visas to somewhere else: Japan, Curacao to transit across the Tran Siberian Railway. When they got to Vladivostok they took the ship across to Japan, they were in Japan and many of them were able to find a way of getting out of Japan before Japan attack the United States December of 1941.

Those who did not leave, though, were relocated by the Japanese to the International Ghetto in Shanghai. And they remained there during the entire war, and they were all safe during the time they -- they were able to live as Jews under Japanese occupation in that ghetto in Shanghai throughout the Second World War, and in fact, had no knowledge of what was happening during the Second World War until the war was over.

MR. BERGER: Or the Secretary of the Treasury, Michael Blumenthal was part of that community. Michael Blumenthal, who is now the head of the Jewish Museum of Berlin.

AMBASSADOR BELL: That's important and that pertains to archives. But if I could just interject, one of the things that we want to emphasize at this plenary session is that the Holocaust is not just the past. The Holocaust is the present and the future. And the reason for that is not merely because coming to terms with it strengthens one's ability to participate in modern institutional frameworks, but also because the message of the Holocaust has always been, "Never again."

And when we look around us, as long as there is violence and genocide and racism and xenophobia and anti-Semitism in the world, and clearly the relevance of these archives and of this history is very real and very important. And of course, over the last 50 years, with Rwanda and Bosnia and many other cataclysms, as much as we think we may have learned the lessons of the past, clearly we haven't always done so.

MR. BERGER: And there's an important point on that and that is that members -- the countries that belong to the Holocaust and those who have begun a liaison relationship have stated a recognition that the Holocaust is not just about Jewish history, but it's about the history of their countries and it's also about their future.

AMBASSADOR BELL: Indeed, it's a, I like to think, for good or ill, it's an aspect, you know instead, of world civilizational history. You know, the --

QUESTION: No, my question now is totally practical. Who's going to be our liaison, for instance, if I wanted to know --

MR. BERGER: Italy is a full member of the Task force.

QUESTION: Yeah, no. But here, for the press? For instance, who would that be? You? And you're here.

MR. BERGER: I can -- well; I'm over at the State Department. Where actually -- the chance that since you folks work out of here, I guess Elaine can pass.

AMBASSADOR BELL: And you're welcome to come -- I am the Chair in Office of the Task force, Ambassador Randolph Bell. And if you want to talk to me, if I'm available, I'm always --

QUESTION: So you're going to both give us cards, right?

MR. BERGER: I'm afraid I only have one left. We'll have to --

AMBASSADOR BELL: I think I have not been preppy and --

MR. BERGER: Did you pick up the bios?

QUESTION: Yeah. Are the telephone numbers on the bios?

MR. BERGER: But if you just send me, e-mail or call me, then I will make sure that the person with the information gets back to you.

QUESTION: Okay.

QUESTION: I just wanted to ask you --

MR. BERGER: If I could just add one more practical thing to you, as well. If you're interested in the relationship with Italy regarding archival issues or historical ones as far as the museum is concerned, you can contact me and I can put you in touch with our archival people as well. As I said before, there is a delegation coming from Italy next week and I would recommend that you speak to them, as well.

QUESTION: Yeah.

AMBASSADOR BELL: That would be a good story for you.

QUESTION: You don't have a card?

AMBASSADOR BELL: I'm sorry. Like an idiot, I came from one --

QUESTION: But could you give, can you give us --

AMBASSADOR BELL: The phone number is 202.647.8791.

QUESTION: 8791. Okay.

AMBASSADOR BELL: On this issue, we are keen to be open to the press.

MR. BERGER: Yeah, and State Department Public Affairs will be sending out an announcement which I will copy over to people here since we --

QUESTION: We don't have our offices at State Department, but I'm the State Department accredited, so I'm the one who goes back and forth most of the time.

MR. BERGER: Deputy Secretary Armitage at that point, then, made public that there's a (inaudible).

QUESTION: And you're attached to the State Department?

AMBASSADOR BELL: I am.

QUESTION: Yeah.

MR. BERGER: Randy is the Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues at the State Department.

QUESTION: So all of the people involved in the Task force come from the foreign ministries?

AMBASSADOR BELL: No. In a typical delegation you would have government officials, often from foreign ministries, so some from cultural and educational and other ministries, and non-governmental organizations -- people representing either human rights groups or perhaps Jewish groups, or perhaps universities.

MR. BERGER: Yeah, other museums, Yad Masshem in Israel and Frank House in Netherlands, Imperial Gordon Museum and the The Shalom Center in England, Wiesenthal Center --

AMBASSADOR BELL: Wiesenthal Center.

MR. BERGER: So there really are quite a few and it's a nice mixing.

AMBASSADOR BELL: And then again, I don't wish to overdraw it, but it is in some ways reminiscent of OSCE because in OSCE there has always been public members and delegations, roles for NGOs and this is, similarly, it is an inter-governmental process which speaks to not merely, you know, render decisions and advocate, but actually to do things and to do practical things.

OSCE engages in democracy building. And we, in our way, engage in the same things, the building of tolerance and pluralism.

MR. BERGER: I think you said that very well. We don't want to end up being a bunch of talking heads, but we really do want to see, in fact, we have a fund that has accumulated over several years that is used for the purpose -- there are no administrative costs, in fact, that are taken out of it.

AMBASSADOR BELL: No overhead.

MR. BERGER: No overhead whatsoever. What we try to do is to use that money for practical seminars, education programs, memorial -- to do something.

AMBASSADOR BELL: Preparation (inaudible) for schools.

QUESTION: I had one question; now I have a second. The quick one is, you take in this press release in the mission statement about the liaison project with the Czech Republic and it's obviously the kind of thing you were just talking about half a second ago about the use of the fund for teacher training and for upkeep of museums and whatever. Do you mention here that liaison projects have been initiated? Are they just a little bit behind and they are catching up?

AMBASSADOR BELL: Well, that's one of the things that this plenary will do is bring all of the projects online. And one of the reasons that I stressed a while ago that joining the task force isn't just getting a credential. It's not about being politically correct. It's about doing things. And so we are, as one of the major indices of our time as chair in office is, "Get it done."

QUESTION: Right.

AMBASSADOR BELL: One of the things that was holding up the projects was a lack of clarity and guidelines and how to's and, you know, what needs to be done to clear it out of the way. So at this plenary, we're going to clear all that out the way.

QUESTION: At the end of the plenary, you'll have a better idea, in fact, what's going on.

AMBASSADOR BELL: We'll have a specific idea of the project, but they'll all be active.

QUESTION: The other question I have is, you talked a lot about, when you have Holocaust core studies programs, Holocaust education, largely it's a response to simple, plain, innocent ignorance by people about what happened.

There's also the whole question of Holocaust denial. How much is that question something that you're dealing with or it just going to be -- you just know that it's there and you'll deal with it as it surfaces, but is there ever any effort --

AMBASSADOR BELL: You mean actually to confront it head on?

QUESTION: Where necessary? Not everywhere if it doesn't exist, but you know.

AMBASSADOR BELL: Well, what we try to do, and I think we succeed in doing is get processes going within countries themselves.

You know, the task force isn't an, sort of, outside agent that comes in and cleans up your act for you. The task force helps countries to take decisions about their institutions of government and their private institutions. Not least, we help them to put together active, historical commissions. And the historical commissions are a good example of where countries deal with Holocaust denial.
I mentioned the Baltics. I don't want to pick on any region of our membership, but there they have had this complex history that was Soviet, Nazi, Soviet, democracy, with democracy starting it off, I guess, since the earlier part of the century. And it's been very hard for many Balts to sort out which was worse. And the historical condition has been a premier place in each instance for starting that out and for people to air their views and to come to terms with that. And Holocaust denial had been an element of that from that instance. So that's an example.

MR. BERGER: I will give you an example, of something, though, that the task force initiated, something that had never taken place before, and it concerns Argentina, for example. Argentina had never had a major seminar on Holocaust education for teachers at the high school level. And the task force, approaching it from a multinational level had educators, really, premier educators from Israel, the United States, France and Britain go to Argentina and in the northwest province of Tucuman, have a seminar, a one-week long seminar -- a one-week-long seminar for 45 high school teachers who were going to become teachers of teachers, so in other words, the beginning of a multiplier --

QUESTION: When was this?

MR. BERGER: This was last November. That's the kind of thing that we want to do more of.

QUESTION: That was really through the task force.

MR. BERGER: The task force initiated --

AMBASSADOR BELL: Directly through the task force.

QUESTION: And the task force is when they -- from the different country, like, this is a joint State Department and Holocaust Museum.

AMBASSADOR BELL: In our case, in the case of the United States, the Department of State and the Holocaust Museum are partners in, you know, both that our delegations and others have the chair and in managing this year in the U.S. chairmanship.

I have the gavel. Arthur has the brain. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: The other countries, do they emanate from the foreign ministries? Is that where the --

AMBASSADOR BELL: In -- we took that question a minute ago. In many instances, yes, but not in all. Some countries have chosen to use their education ministries or their cultural ministries.

MR. BERGER: Yeah. But it's always a government entity. In fact, in most countries, if the government doesn't lead it, it doesn't happen.

QUESTION: Right.

AMBASSADOR BELL: It's parallel in a way to what we're doing -- I happen to also separately confess to be working very hard on behalf of this OSCE meeting that I mentioned this summer. And in the OSCE context, as well as as a matter of U.S. national policy, we have wanted to have government officials in delegations because government officials are the ones who act on violence or on manifestations of hatred.

QUESTION: Is there a possibility that this will ever include countries besides Israel or from the Middle East if it's ever --

AMBASSADOR BELL: That question has never been formally addressed within the task force and it's an open one.

Speaking personally, you know, I can see that in some instances, there would be a great deal that you could accomplish by being more inclusive. Speaking personally, again, what you would want to avoid is that the task force moved away from its practical and, I think, highly productive agenda and became a political debating society.

But if you think of, you know, countries where there are already existent Jewish communities and where those Jewish communities and other religious bodies --

MR. BERGER: Like Morocco --

AMBASSADOR BELL: -- work well with Islamic majorities, you know, there's more than one out there.