On the anniversary of the Nazi pogrom that started the Holocaust, Chancellor Olaf Scholz committed Thursday to protect Germany’s Jews from a “shameful” rise in anti-Semitism in the aftermath of the Israel-Hamas war.
Speaking in a Berlin synagogue that assailants targeted with two Molotov cocktails last month, Scholz said: “Essentially this is about keeping the promise given again and again in the decades since 1945…the promise ‘never again’.”
The German leader was addressing on the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass that ushered in the Nazi massacre of six million European Jews during World War II.
On November 9-10, 1938, Nazi thugs murdered at least 90 Jews, set fire to 1,400 synagogues throughout Germany and Austria, and destroyed Jewish-owned stores and enterprises.
The planned action was prompted by the fatal shooting of a German diplomat in Paris on November 7, 1938, by a Polish Jewish student.
The Nazis gathered up and deported at least 30,000 Jews to concentration camps, and forced Jews to pay “compensation” for property damage.
On October 7, 2018, Hamas terrorists rushed into Israel, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, in their homes, on the streets, and at a dance party.
The worst attack on Israel since its inception prompted it to declare war on Hamas, with Israeli forces intensively shelling Gaza before sending in ground troops to eliminate the Islamist outfit. According to the Hamas-run health ministry, more than 10,500 people have been murdered in the region, the vast majority of whom were civilians, many of whom were children.
According to federal police, 2,000 anti-Semitic acts relating to the Israel-Hamas conflict have been documented in Germany since the Hamas attack. Security has been beefed up around Jewish institutions.
Two individuals threw Molotov cocktails at the Beth Zion synagogue in Berlin in October. Although no one was injured, the attack shook many Jews in the capital.
Pro-Palestinian marches on German streets have attracted far-right and far-left extremists chanting anti-Israel and anti-Semitic slogans, sparking conflicts with police in certain cases.
Scholz and the majority of his cabinet, as well as head Frank-Walter Steinmeier, attended the service at Beth Zion, as did Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, 102-year-old Holocaust survivor Margot Friedlaender, and family members of Israelis held captive by Hamas.