LONDON (JTA) — The German millionaire grandson of a convicted Nazi war criminal has hinted at the possibility that his family might donate funds to Holocaust survivors.

Dr. Gert-Rudolf Flick, who spoke of the potential donation, is the grandson of Friedrich Flick, a convicted Nazi war criminal who served three years of a seven-year sentence imposed by the Nuremburg tribunals in 1947.

Friedrich Flick's companies employed at least 48,000 slave laborers during World War II, including Jews from Nazi concentration camps.

Gert-Rudolf Flick said last week that he thought it was "absolutely possible" that donations would be made to Holocaust survivors.

But, he added, "I am only one member of the Flick family and I have inherited only 10 percent of the fortune."

He added: "I realize the seriousness of the matter. The problem is of such magnitude. How can you compensate for human tragedy with money?"

Editors who allowed anti-Jewish ad fired

SYDNEY, Australia (JTA) — The editors of a New Zealand student newspaper have been fired after they published a phony advertisement that ridiculed Jewish victims of Nazis.

The ad, which appeared two weeks ago in the Canterbury University newspaper Canta, included the text: "The Importance of Being Furnaced. It's a wacky Jewish comedy. It's a gas. A cast of six million."

Condemnation from prominent Jews and non-Jews immediately followed and led to the student body's dismissal of the editors responsible.

"Everybody in New Zealand seemed to immediately understand the offensiveness of the student editors' actions — except the editors themselves," David Zwartz, president of the New Zealand Jewish Council, said.

France cancels visit by Iranian in protest

PARIS (JTA) — France recently canceled a visit by Iran's deputy foreign minister to protest Tehran's praise for the recent suicide bombings in Israel.

In addition to the cancellation of Mahmoud Vaezi's planned visit at the end of this month, French officials summoned the ambassadors of Iran and Libya to "confirm our disapproval of the Iranian and Libyan reactions to the attacks carried out in Israel," a spokesman said last week.

Government spokesman Alain Lamassoure said after the weekly cabinet meeting that France wanted to take diplomatic measures against Iran in coordination with the European Union.

Two weeks ago 11 of France's 32 cabinet ministers, along with the leaders of all the major political parties, joined 5,000 demonstrators on the streets of Paris to show their support for Middle East peace.

Iran, which has denied financing the activities of the militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements, praised the four suicide bombings as "divine retribution." Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy reacted to the bombings by calling the Jewish state a "tomb for Jews."

First Costa Rican Jew to seek office quits

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (JTA) — Luis Fishman recently dropped out of the race for president of this predominantly Catholic Central American country, closing the door on the first-ever presidential bid by a Jew.

Fishman, a former Minister of the Interior and Public Security, withdrew his candidacy after the Social Christian Unity Party's leading candidate, Miguel Angel Rodriguez, asked him to abandon the campaign and, in turn, to head the party's list of candidates for the unicameral Legislative Assembly in the 1998 general elections.

Fishman, 48, said he decided to withdraw from the race after opinion polls showed he would be unable to defeat Rodriguez in the party's primary and that the contest might divide the party before 1998 elections.

New Jewish school opens in Hungary

BUDAPEST (JTA) — The new campus of a Jewish school, funded with a grant of $4.5 million from the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation, has opened here.

The first school campus to be privately built in Hungary since the end of World War II, the Lauder Javne Jewish Community School houses a kindergarten, elementary school and high school. It will offer a Jewish education to 600 Hungarian children ages 5 to 18.

The school, which was first founded here in 1990, found a new site on a five-acre campus in the Buda Hills that was donated on a rent-free, 99-year lease by the Budapest municipality.

The new school campus represented Lauder's largest investment in an Eastern or Central European Jewish community.

Hungary, with an estimated 80,000 Jews, has the largest Jewish community in Eastern Europe.