Jewish leaders say that Catholic Bishop Richard Williamson did not go far enough in Thursday's apology for a television interview in which he said no Jews were gassed during the Holocaust and that the six million killed figure was exaggerated. The bishop also did not specifically say that his comments were erroneous, or that he no longer believed them.
Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles told the Associated Press, "The one thing he doesn't say, and the main thing, is that the Holocaust occurred, that it is not a fabrication, that it is not a lie."
Renzo Gattegna, the president of Italy's Jewish Communities, described the apology as "absolutely ambiguous."
Iris Rosenberg, spokeswoman of the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. "If he is looking to repent, he needs to admit that he was wrong in denying the truth."