© dpa
© dpa
Participants walk along the memorial path of the churches on the occasion of the 85th anniversary of the November 1938 pogroms.
Around 2000 people took part in a tour of West Berlin on Thursday to commemorate the Nazi pogrom night 85 years ago.
The number was given by the police. The so-called memorial route led from Winterfeldtplatz via Tauentzienstraße and Kurfürstendamm to the Jewish Community Centre in Fasanenstraße.
At a commemoration ceremony organised by the community, the Governing Mayor Kai Wegner warned that such violence against Jews must never be allowed to happen again. "Never again is now", said the CDU politician. He also had this message projected onto the Brandenburg Gate in the evening. The pogroms of November 9 and 10, 1938 were "a sombre, very dark chapter in our history that we must never forget", said the CDU politician.
Wegner made a link to current anti-Jewish incidents in Berlin since the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on 7 October. "What sometimes happens in our schools, but also on our streets, must not remain without consequences," said the Governing Mayor. Everyone must look and speak up. "Perhaps we have looked in recent years, but we have remained quiet," said Wegner. "I don't think we can stay quiet anymore." He wants to live in a Berlin where people can wear a kippah without fear, where there are no arson attacks on synagogues. It's about peaceful coexistence: "We have to do this together."
The chairman of the Jewish community, Gideon Joffe, reminded the audience how diverse Berlin is. "Berlin has become so colourful and so diverse that you might think you can only feel comfortable here," said Joffe. "On the one hand, this city is becoming more and more colourful, on the other hand, the mood in the Jewish community is getting darker and darker." It is beginning to boil. We have to start taking action against it. Joffe thanked Wegner for his support, but also the Christian churches who had organised the memorial walk through City West in the afternoon. There were more than 100 Jewish shops along the route before the Second World War, many of which were the target of anti-Semitic vandalism and looting on Pogrom Night.
The Berlin Archbishop of the Catholic Church, Heiner Koch, said that the memorial walk was a sign of solidarity with the Jews in Berlin today. Protestant Bishop Christian Stäblein emphasised: "In a city where Jewish people and Jewish institutions are threatened and attacked, we say loud and clear: Never again is now." The German government's anti-Semitism commissioner, Felix Klein, said that it was not enough to emphasise that the Shoah must not be repeated. It is crucial to stand up to Jews when they are attacked.
The participants also made a stop at Grünfeld-Ecke, the former Joachimsthaler Platz at the junction with Kurfürstendamm. It had only been renamed on Wednesday and now bears the name of the Jewish family who ran a well-known department stores' there in the 1930s. In 1938, Nazi thugs began a nationwide wave of violence against Jews on the night of 9/10 November. According to the German Historical Museum, more than 1,300 people were killed, 1,400 synagogues were destroyed and damaged, 7,000 shops were attacked and 30,000 Jews were deported to concentration camps.