On November 9, on the occasion of the 84th anniversary of the National Socialist pogrom night against Jews, there will be numerous commemorative events - but also warnings.
Erfurt (dpa/th) - Hate, hate speech, anti-Semitism and violence should have no place in Thuringia from the point of view of the Thuringian state parliament president Birgit Pommer. "84 years after the attacks on synagogues, places of worship, shops, cemeteries and Jewish homes, we have to realize that anti-Semitism, racism and many other forms of group-focused enmity have not disappeared," said Pommer on the occasion of the 84th anniversary of the pogrom night on November 9 November 1938. "There are still people in this country who deny, relativize and downplay the Shoah."
Anti-Semitism is "an attack on all of us - on everyone who feels committed to democracy and a free society," said the President of the Landtag, who will take part in the commemoration event for the victims of the pogroms and give a greeting. From the point of view of the chairman of the left-wing parliamentary group in the Thuringian state parliament, Steffen Dittes, November 9th is not only a day to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and to remember the events of 1938, but also "a day of reminders of the responsibility of a every individual in a society not to leave Jews defenseless at the mercy of anti-Semitism".
Anti-Semitism has never really been defeated in people's minds. This is shown by anti-Semitic stereotypes and attacks that relativize the Holocaust, which have increased significantly nationwide since 2018. He complained about the destruction and desecration of memorials and cemeteries, attacks on the memorial project "1000 Buchen" and regular graffiti on the Buchenwald memorial.
The wave of violence known as the Pogrom Night is considered the prelude to the systematic annihilation of the Jewish population. In the night from November 9th to 10th, 1938, the National Socialists devastated around 7,500 Jewish businesses and institutions in Germany. Historians assume that more than 1,300 people died as a result of the pogrom. More than 30,000 Jews were deported to concentration camps.
According to Dittes, knowledge grows into a responsibility to follow commemoration and remembrance with active political action against the rise of anti-Semitic and Holocaust-relaxing voices.
The chairwoman of the Green Party parliamentary group, Astrid Rothe-Beinlich, and the group's domestic policy spokeswoman, Madeleine Henfling, agreed. "More than ever, civil society and security authorities need a clear stance and demarcation from the right, but also and especially on the part of all democratic parties, to make it clear that this course of the right-wing extremists is not supported." said Henfling. The peaceful revolution in the GDR, which led to the fall of the Wall on November 9, shows to this day that "civil courage can change a society fundamentally and positively," said Rothe-Beinlich.
