Holocaust | 10.11.2009

Reunification joy shouldn't overshadow Kristallnacht, Jews warn

Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Many Jewish-owned shops were targeted in the attacks

While Berlin played host to massive celebrations to mark 20 years of unification on Monday, the Central Council of Jews in Germany urged the nation not to forget November 9, 1938.

Council President Charlotte Knoblauch said the joy experienced on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall had "overhadowed" the remembrance of Kristallnacht, also known as the Night of Broken Glass.

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Prisoners arrive at Auschwitz

That was the night, 71 years ago, when Jewish citizens and their property became the targets of mass-scale coordinated attacks across Germany and Austria.

Knoblauch said that although it was natural and quite right for Germany to be focusing so sharply on the events of two decades ago, it was also important to mark both occasions appropriately in the future.

Speaking in Munich on Monday, she said the desecration of a synagoge in the city of Dresden, which was sprayed with Swastikas a day before the reunification celebrations, clearly demonstrated that antisemitism and public incitement were "a serious problem."

Nazi thinking, she added, "has seeped into all areas of society."

She said 550 antisemitic crimes had been committed across Germany in the first half of this year, and stressed the importance of making sure young people are aware of history.

Paving the road to Auschwitz

While the night of November 9, 1989, signalled the opening of the gates to freedom for East Germans, Knoblauch said, the same night 51 years earlier had paved the way to Auschwitz.

Germany has to show that it "is committed to the basic democratic values - with an awareness of the darkest chapter in its history."

Kristallnacht commemoration ceremonies were held across Germany and President Horst Koehler, who was attending a 20-year anniversary service in Berlin, urged the congregation not to forget 1938.

He said the two historic dates were connected, and that Germany had survived the division "because we have learned the necessary lessons from our history between 1933 and 1945."

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: The burned out ruins of a Berlin synagogue after Kristallnacht, 1938

Koehler added that Germany would forever remember the link between the two dates.

Systematic destruction and brutality

During Kristallnacht, German forces and the Hitler Youth took sledgehammers to Jewish homes and business and destroyed at least 200 synagogues. They murdered some ninety Jews and arrested as many as 30,000, who were then transported to concentration camps.

Those imprisoned were largely healthy young men, and they were subjected to systematic and often fatal brutality. Most were released within three months of their arrest on condition that they leave Germany, but by that time more than 2,000 had already died.

November 9, 1938 has always been seen as a major turning point in the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany, and has often been referred to as the start of the Holocaust.

tkw/reuters/AP

Editor: Jennifer Abramsohn