CHANCELLOR Angela Merkel and Germany’s main Jewish leader have warned against tolerating modern-day anti-Semitism and racism as they marked the 80th anniversary of the Nazis’ purge of Jewish people on the infamous “Night of Broken Glass”.
On November 9, 1938 – known as Kristallnacht – Jews were terrorised throughout Germany and Austria.
At least 91 people were killed, hundreds of synagogues burned down, 7500 Jewish businesses vandalised, and up to 30,000 Jewish men arrested, many of whom were taken away to concentration camps.
Twenty years after Germany’s defeat in the First World War and five years after Adolf Hitler took power, state-driven anti-Semitism “made it possible for many Germans to live out long-held resentments, to live out hatred and violence”, Merkel said.
Speaking alongside Merkel, the head of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, said that, while modern-day attacks on Jews, migrants and Muslims cannot be equated with the crimes of the Nazi era, “I see it as a disgrace for our country that such things happen in Germany in 2018”.
He condemned the far-right Alternative for Germany party, which he said has “respect for nothing” and which his organisation did not invite to Friday’s event. The party entered Germany’s parliament last year.
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