E/CN.4/1996/72 page 16 Soviet Union, where most of the Holocaust victims were killed. Issues such as compensation for Jewish property, rehabilitation of war criminals who today are presented as national anti-Communist heroes, cooperation of the local population with the Nazis are all still sensitive subjects. Every commemoration and new monument take their toll in anti-Jewish terms." 57. In addition to the communication from the Israeli Government, the Special Rapporteur received a document from the Coordinating Board of Jewish Organizations concerning anti-semitism 8/ which is annexed to this report (annex II). III. PROVISIONAL EVALUATION 58. As the reports he has submitted both to the Commission and to the General Assembly show, the end of apartheid does not mean the end of racism and racial discrimination. The manifestations of contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, together with anti-Semitism, bode ill for the international community. 59. Racist propaganda and incitement to ethnic and racial hatred are spreading; racism is taking increasingly violent forms including physical aggression, murder, attacks on the property of immigrants or people belonging to ethnic, racial or religious minorities, the desecration of cemeteries and the destruction of places of worship. The resurgence of the absolute sovereignty of States takes the form of the use of the law, and therefore of legislation to curb and significantly reduce immigration, the right of asylum and the free movement of persons, a subtle reflection of the xenophobia which rages in many regions, both in the north and in the South. 60. Certain attitudes that have been adopted might be seen as implying that such phenomena are not of great importance. For his part, the Special Rapporteur has tried to place his own efforts in the context of the international disapproval reflected by the World Conference on Human Rights (Vienna, June 1993) and which led to the proclamation of the Third Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination. 61. In spite of the limited material and human resources at his disposal, he has endeavoured to identify the various aspects of the problem with the assistance of Governments, the specialized agencies, in particular ILO and UNESCO, regional organizations including the Council of Europe, national institutions and non-governmental organizations, which all kindly transmitted information to him. 62. The missions of the Special Rapporteur have enabled him to begin a dialogue with the Governments of the countries he visited. He has had the opportunity to appreciate the usefulness of such missions to the places concerned in that they may make it possible, within a short space of time, to get a sense of the actual situation in the country. Through dialogue with those involved on a daily basis, such missions provide a means of going beyond the impersonality of written texts and statistics in order to come to grips with living reality and its contradictions.