BERLIN (AFP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Saturday, on the eve of the 70th anniversary of major anti-Jewish riots, on her compatriots to "fight with determination" against racism and anti-Semitism.
On the night of November 9, 1938, during what became known as Kristallancht (the night of glass), Nazi-inspired mobs destroyed some 200 synagogues, smashed countless windows and wrecked Jewish-owned homes and businesses. At least 90 Jews died and 30,000 were rounded up and imprisoned.
"We know the unspeakable began that day and ended with the Holocaust," she said in her weekly video message broadcast on the Internet.
"We must guard that memory not only out of duty towards the victims but also to ensure that it does not happen again," she said.
During the night of November 9 to 10, "many in Germany did not want to see. But we also know many witnesses of the time who knew what fate awaited the Jews in Germany."
Merkel is due to take part Sunday in a ceremony at Berlin's largest synagogue, one of the few to escape destruction by the Nazis, in the company of survivors of Kristallnacht.
The secretary general of the central council of German Jews, Stephan Kramer, called in a Berlin newspaper on the authorities to explain better the Nazi era to young people who should "more than ever at the moment be warned against the dangers of the future, of a new anti-Semitism and of the far-right."
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