HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR MEDNI RODAN WHO PLANS TO PRESENT WAGNER PICTURED IN JERUSALEM, 2000-05-02 (photo)

Mendi Rodan, 71, the conductor of the Israel Symphony Orchestra, says he will lead his orchestra this October in the first public performance in Israel of any work by Nazi leader Adolf hitler's favourite composer Richard Wagner. Rodan told Reuters in an interview May 2, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, that, "it's satisfaction, not revenge" that he will play the 19th century German composer's music. Rodan, from Romania, himself survived the Nazi Holocaust but lost his father and uncles to the Nazis when they invaded his village and he, his mother and four younger brothers fled into the forests. JWH