Friday, November 09, 2018

Kristallnacht Remembered

French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe has revealed a 69% increase in anti-Semitic incidents this year.
"We are a very far cry from ridding ourselves of anti-Semitism," he said, calling on France not to remain indifferent to a "relentless" rise.
On the 80th anniversary of the Nazi Kristallnacht attack on Germany's Jews, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she lacked the words to describe it. In a speech in Berlin's Rykestrasse synagogue, she said the pogrom night of 9 November led to the Holocaust, and yet anti-Semitism still flourished in public and online.
"We have sadly almost become accustomed to the fact that every synagogue, Jewish school, kindergarten, restaurant and cemetery needs to be either guarded by police or given special protection," she said.
In Austria, where at least 30 people died on Kristallnacht, President Alexander Van der Bellen said history had to be seen as an example of "where the politics of scapegoating, incitement and exclusion can lead".
The head of the Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, accused Germany's far-right AfD party of stoking incitement. Every other week a synagogue or mosque was daubed with hate speech, he said.
  • On 9-10 November 1938, a series of co-ordinated attacks were carried out on Jewish and Jewish-owned property and businesses
  • 91 people died and 30,000 more were arrested
  • 1,400 synagogues and Jewish centres were torched and 7,500 Jewish business demolished
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46150677

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