VIENNA, 1 May 2004 — Fifty-five nations of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe wrapped up an emotional conference in Berlin on Thursday with a pledge to fight “new forms” of anti-Semitism and a ringing condemnation of a new wave of hate crimes against Jews.

A statement distributed in Vienna by the OSCE secretariat said the two-day meeting had significantly contributed to making the collective response to anti-Semitism more credible. “This scourge strikes against the foundations of democracy and the way our countries respond to anti-Semitism is critical for the credibility of democracy,” it quoted Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy, the current OSCE chairman, as saying.

“(The states) declare unambiguously that international developments or political issues, including those in Israel or elsewhere in the Middle East, never justify anti-Semitism,” Passy said, reading the final agreement.

Meeting in the city where the Nazis were accused of hatching their plan to annihilate Europe’s Jews, the 55 countries unanimously adopted a declaration that condemned “all attacks motivated by anti-Semitism or by any other forms of religious or racial hatred or intolerance, including attacks against synagogues and other religious places, sites and shrines.”

The conference, co-sponsored by the German government, was marked by impassioned speeches by prominent Holocaust survivors including Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel and former French government minister Simone Veil expressing their horror at a resurgence of anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe.

In a symbolic gesture to cap the Berlin event, Passy “returned” the yellow star his Jewish grandfather was forced to wear under Nazi occupation.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, visibly moved, accepted the small star which was embedded in a blue velvet case. “I will preserve this,” he said.

Delegates and Jewish organizations welcomed the “Berlin Declaration” as a strong, timely denunciation of a recent upsurge in attacks on Jews in France, Britain and some other European countries.

Vandals desecrated 127 graves with Nazi swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans in a Jewish cemetery close to the French border with Germany yesterday.

“Juden raus” — “Jews out” in German — was written above the entrance gate to the cemetery, and two German flags and the Nazi slogan “One Reich, One People, One Leader” in German were also found on the site.

More than 800 conference delegates applauded as Passy read out the declaration, which commits governments to collect and submit reliable information about anti-Semitic and other hate crimes. The OSCE includes the United States, Canada and countries across Europe.

Deidre Berger, director of the American Jewish Committee in Berlin, said the declaration made the conference more successful than two previous major meetings on anti-Semitism in the past year.

(Additional input from agencies)