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Angela Merkel, German Chancellor, will deliver a speech at a ceremony in a Berlin synagogue on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night of Nazi terrorism across Germany and the United States. Austria who drove thousands of Jewish families to flee.
Merkel will be joined by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier for Friday's commemoration at the Rykestrasse Synagogue, organized by the Central Council of Jews in Germany.
The Jewish community of Berlin has also organized a number of events, including a ceremony at the regional parliament during which the names of the 55,696 Jews of the city murdered during the Holocaust will be read at the Jewish Memorial murdered from Europe. .
The anniversary will also be marked by Jewish communities around the world. In the UK, where nearly 10,000 children took the Kindertransport train after Kristallnacht, a multi-denominational memorial service will be held at Westminster Abbey on Thursday night, and synagogues will shed light on the Jewish Sabbath.
More than 1,400 synagogues and other Jewish premises were looted and destroyed in Germany and Austria during a series of pogroms unleashed by the Nazis in the night of 9 to 10 November 1938.
Shop windows, shops and Jewish homes were smashed by the police who stood near him during the anti-Semitic rampage, giving him the name of Kristallnacht (night of broken glass)
Dozens of synagogues were burned under firefighters' eyes. their orders were only to come in if the flames threatened to spread to other buildings.
At least 91 Jews were killed in the violence and nearly 30,000 men were rounded up and taken to concentration camps.
In the weeks that followed, the German government passed dozens of laws and decrees aimed at Jews and their property. Many families have fled the country or sent their children to safety.
Martin Winstone of the Holocaust Educational Trust, based in the UK, said: "Everything that happened to Kristallnacht had already happened, but until then, it was localized and not orchestrated. Kristallnacht was a new level of radicalism and systematic national violence against the Jews.
"Many Jews had already left Germany and Austria, but for the rest, Kristallnacht" represented a moment of reluctance to realize that there was no problem. future for them there. "
This year's commemoration is "probably the last major anniversary where there are still living witnesses of what happened. And it is given an extra dimension because of the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe, and the question of how we treat displaced people from their homes is back on the agenda, "he said. he added.
Josef Schuster, President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said: "The images of the synagogues in flames and destroyed Jewish shops are now part of our collective memory.
"The memory of the November pogroms is important because it shows us the horrific consequences of a group's social exclusion. And this shows that civil society has not resisted or protested against violence against Jews. Resist the beginnings – it's the message of this date. "
After the Holocaust, "it was not accepted that Jewish life would come to life again in Germany," added Schuster. But the Jewish population of the country more than tripled between 1990 and 2002, many Jews leaving the former Soviet Union.
According to data from the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the number of Jews living in Germany increased from 106,435 in 2008 to 97,791 last year. Between 2015 and 2017, the number of reported antisemitic crimes increased from 1,366 to 1,504, although they were lower than the previous decade, when they had increased to about 1,600.
Some politicians blamed incoming migrants for the recent rise, but the data showed that in 2017, nearly 95% of incidents had a right motive.
However, many anti-Semitic incidents are not reported to the authorities, according to some surveillance groups. RIAS, which tracks anti-Semitic incidents in Berlin, recorded 947 incidents in the German capital alone, nearly double those of 2016, when they were 590.
Anecdotally, some Jews speak of forbidden areas in Berlin and in other German cities. All major Jewish sites, including synagogues, are guarded by the police.
Ilan Kiesling, a spokesperson for Berlin's Jewish community, said, "Our community members have become accustomed to this over the decades – community life is practically behind protective barriers and surveillance cameras. . "
The rise of anti-Semitism in Germany and throughout Europe has made events such as the commemoration of Kristallnacht even more important, he said.
Hella Pick, who arrived in the UK from Vienna in 1939 at the age of eight, said that Austria had not confronted her past in the same way that she did. 39; Germany.
"Germany really tried to understand what happened. Every schoolboy must learn the history of the country. It's a big contrast with Austria, "she said. All children should learn Jewish history, "not just the Holocaust, but the contribution the Jews have made to literature, the arts, etc."
Pick, who has spent 35 years working for the Guardian, said she had very few memories of her childhood in Vienna in the 1930s. "I've somehow wiped it out of my mind" , she says.
The interior of the Rykestrasse synagogue was destroyed during Kristallnacht, although the structure of the building survived the bombing of Berlin during the Second World War, almost without damage.
In 1940, it was confiscated by the Wehrmacht and used as stables and as a place of storage. Its restoration was completed in 2007 and is now the second largest synagogue in Europe with a capacity of 2,000 people.
