Never Again: Kristallnacht
Exactly 70 years after the 1938 Nazi pogrom widely seen as the precursor to the Holocaust, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Germans not to be indifferent to anti-Semitism.
"Indifference is the first step towards endangering essential values," Merkel said during Germany's national memorial ceremony for Kristallnacht - "the Night of Broken Glass" - at the old synagogue in Berlin's Rykestrasse.
"Germany needs a climate that encourages moral courage," Merkel said. "Xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism must never be given an opportunity in Europe again."
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"It is a mistake to think it doesn't affect you when your neighbors are affected," Merkel added. "This mistake just leads us further and further into evil."
On November 9, 1938, massive riots began across Germany and Austria. More than 91 Jews were killed, more than 1,000 synagogues were damaged and 7,500 Jewish businesses were ransacked and looted.
Some 30,000 Jewish men and boys were arrested in the two-day pogrom and sent to concentration camps. ultimately led to more than 1,300 deaths from injuries, by suicide or in concentration camps, official historians add.
Olmert: Israel will never forgive or forget Nazi crimes
At the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said, "Israel will never forgive or forget the crimes of the Nazi regime."
President Shimon Peres issued a statement on Sunday, calling the Holocaust "the worst disaster that ever happened to us."
Marking the event, Yad Vashem uploaded a new online exhibit, "It Came From Within ... 70 Years Since Kristallnacht," featuring testimonies, images, historical information, and pages of testimony about some of the Jews who died during Kristallnacht.
Sunday's ceremony also included a rare musical rendition of a work of the
German-Jewish composer Robert Kahn. A student of Johannes Brahms, Kahn fled Germany after the Nazis outlawed the playing of his music and destroyed many of his notes.
Capping the conference were remarks from a representative of Aktion
Suhnezeichen Friendensdienste, a German national service program that sends youths to volunteer in Israel with Holocaust survivors.
German-born pope expresses pain over Kristallnacht
Meanwhile, German-born Pope Benedict voiced on Sunday his lingering pain over the night 70 years ago when the Nazis whipped up the anti-Jewish riots.
The pope is currently being lobbied by Holocaust survivors and their descendants to halt the process of making his wartime predecessor Pius XII a saint.
Some Jews accuse Pius, who reigned from 1939 to 1958, of turning a blind eye to the Holocaust. The Vatican says he worked behind the scenes to help save many Jews from certain death.
Pope Benedict, born Joseph Ratzinger in Bavaria in 1927, was forced to join the Hitler Youth as a teenager, though both his parents opposed the Nazis.
Earlier this year the pontiff spoke in New York about his teenage years being "marred by a sinister regime."
"Still today I feel pain over what happened in those tragic events, whose memory must serve to ensure such horrors are never repeated and that we strive, on every level, against all forms of anti-Semitism and discrimination ... ," said the pope.
"I invite people to pray for the victims of that night and to join me in expressing profound solidarity with the Jewish world," the pontiff told crowds at the Vatican after his regular Sunday Angelus address.
German Jewish leader: Alarming signals coming from Rightists
Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said on Sunday she was disturbed by the success of far-right parties in several eastern state elections.
"There are some alarming signals...There seems to be a lack of conviction by democratic forces to take on the rightists," said Knobloch, who eye-witnessed 'Kristallnacht' as an 6-year-old in Munich. "Strong steps are needed to fight them."
A close ally of Merkel, Lower Saxony state premier Christian Wulff, was criticised on Friday for saying the financial crisis was causing a "pogrom sentiment" aimed at business executives.
Wulff expressed his regrets as Jewish leaders called for his resignation. His comment came just weeks after one of Germany's most prominent economists, Hans-Werner Sinn, was forced to apologise for a similar analogy.
Jewish culture had thrived in Berlin before the Nazis took power. It was one of the world's 10 largest Jewish centres and many of Germany's leading scientists were Berlin Jews.
There were about 160,000 Jews in Berlin in 1933, when Hitler came to power, but only 1,400 in 1945 at the end of World War Two. The rest emigrated or were killed in death camps.
The ostensible impetus for Kristallnacht was the November 7 attack on German diplomat, Ernst von Rath, by a Polish-Jewish student named Herschel Grynszpan in Paris. Rath's death sparked public protests, which Hitler is reported to have proposed harnessing for broad attacks on Jews.
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"Indifference is the first step towards endangering essential values," Merkel said during Germany's national memorial ceremony for Kristallnacht - "the Night of Broken Glass" - at the old synagogue in Berlin's Rykestrasse.
"Germany needs a climate that encourages moral courage," Merkel said. "Xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism must never be given an opportunity in Europe again."
Advertisement
"It is a mistake to think it doesn't affect you when your neighbors are affected," Merkel added. "This mistake just leads us further and further into evil."
On November 9, 1938, massive riots began across Germany and Austria. More than 91 Jews were killed, more than 1,000 synagogues were damaged and 7,500 Jewish businesses were ransacked and looted.
Some 30,000 Jewish men and boys were arrested in the two-day pogrom and sent to concentration camps. ultimately led to more than 1,300 deaths from injuries, by suicide or in concentration camps, official historians add.
Olmert: Israel will never forgive or forget Nazi crimes
At the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said, "Israel will never forgive or forget the crimes of the Nazi regime."
President Shimon Peres issued a statement on Sunday, calling the Holocaust "the worst disaster that ever happened to us."
Marking the event, Yad Vashem uploaded a new online exhibit, "It Came From Within ... 70 Years Since Kristallnacht," featuring testimonies, images, historical information, and pages of testimony about some of the Jews who died during Kristallnacht.
Sunday's ceremony also included a rare musical rendition of a work of the
German-Jewish composer Robert Kahn. A student of Johannes Brahms, Kahn fled Germany after the Nazis outlawed the playing of his music and destroyed many of his notes.
Capping the conference were remarks from a representative of Aktion
Suhnezeichen Friendensdienste, a German national service program that sends youths to volunteer in Israel with Holocaust survivors.
German-born pope expresses pain over Kristallnacht
Meanwhile, German-born Pope Benedict voiced on Sunday his lingering pain over the night 70 years ago when the Nazis whipped up the anti-Jewish riots.
The pope is currently being lobbied by Holocaust survivors and their descendants to halt the process of making his wartime predecessor Pius XII a saint.
Some Jews accuse Pius, who reigned from 1939 to 1958, of turning a blind eye to the Holocaust. The Vatican says he worked behind the scenes to help save many Jews from certain death.
Pope Benedict, born Joseph Ratzinger in Bavaria in 1927, was forced to join the Hitler Youth as a teenager, though both his parents opposed the Nazis.
Earlier this year the pontiff spoke in New York about his teenage years being "marred by a sinister regime."
"Still today I feel pain over what happened in those tragic events, whose memory must serve to ensure such horrors are never repeated and that we strive, on every level, against all forms of anti-Semitism and discrimination ... ," said the pope.
"I invite people to pray for the victims of that night and to join me in expressing profound solidarity with the Jewish world," the pontiff told crowds at the Vatican after his regular Sunday Angelus address.
German Jewish leader: Alarming signals coming from Rightists
Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said on Sunday she was disturbed by the success of far-right parties in several eastern state elections.
"There are some alarming signals...There seems to be a lack of conviction by democratic forces to take on the rightists," said Knobloch, who eye-witnessed 'Kristallnacht' as an 6-year-old in Munich. "Strong steps are needed to fight them."
A close ally of Merkel, Lower Saxony state premier Christian Wulff, was criticised on Friday for saying the financial crisis was causing a "pogrom sentiment" aimed at business executives.
Wulff expressed his regrets as Jewish leaders called for his resignation. His comment came just weeks after one of Germany's most prominent economists, Hans-Werner Sinn, was forced to apologise for a similar analogy.
Jewish culture had thrived in Berlin before the Nazis took power. It was one of the world's 10 largest Jewish centres and many of Germany's leading scientists were Berlin Jews.
There were about 160,000 Jews in Berlin in 1933, when Hitler came to power, but only 1,400 in 1945 at the end of World War Two. The rest emigrated or were killed in death camps.
The ostensible impetus for Kristallnacht was the November 7 attack on German diplomat, Ernst von Rath, by a Polish-Jewish student named Herschel Grynszpan in Paris. Rath's death sparked public protests, which Hitler is reported to have proposed harnessing for broad attacks on Jews.
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