Photo: German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier and chancellor Olaf Sholz attended a ceremony to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogroms at the synagogue of the Kahal Adass Jisroel Jewish complex attacked by Molotov cocktails last month.
BERLIN (AP)–Across Germany, in schools, city halls, synagogues, churches and parliament, people came together Thursday to commemorate the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass in 1938 in which the Nazis terrorized Jews throughout Germany and Austria.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Germany’s main Jewish leader Josef Schuster spoke at an anniversary ceremony at a Berlin synagogue that was attacked with firebombs last month.
“Jews have been particularly affected by exclusion for centuries,” Scholz said in his speech.
“Still and again here in our democratic Germany, and that after the breach of civilization committed by Germans in the Shoah,” they are being discriminated against, the chancellor added.
“That is a disgrace. It outrages and shames me deeply,” Scholz said. “Any form of anti-Semitism poisons our society. We do not tolerate it.”