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Germany remembers Kristallnacht

GERMAN president Frank-Walter Steinmeier marked the 83rd anniversary of the anti-Jewish pogrom that was labelled Kristallnacht, the Night Of Broken Glass, when Nazis, among them many ordinary Germans, terrorised Jews throughout Germany and Austria.

In a speech in Berlin, Steinmeier talked about November 9, 1938, when the Nazis killed at least 91 people, vandalised around 7500 Jewish businesses and burned more than 1400 synagogues.

The president also pointed out that other significant events also happened on November 9: in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, sending East Germans flooding west and setting in motion events that soon led to the country’s reunification.

And in 1918, when Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed Germany a republic at the end of the First World War.

“November 9 is an ambivalent day, a bright and a dark day,” he said. “It makes our hearts pound and brings tears to our eyes. It makes us hope for the good that is in our country, and it makes us despair in the face of its abysses.”

Austria inaugurated a Wall of Memories in Vienna with the names of 64,000 Austrian Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust.

Last night in both Austria and Germany virtual reconstructions were projected of synagogues in 18 cities that were destroyed or damaged by the Nazis. The head of Germany’s Central Council of Jews warned that knowledge of the Kristallnacht events is declining.

“The pogrom of 1938, which at the time did not provoke widespread protests by citizens, should always be remembered in Germany as a warning,” Josef Schuster said.