GERMANY: German president opens synagogue, sees anti-semitism
- 00:01:33
- ITN Source
GERMANY: German president opens synagogue, sees anti-semitism
German President Horst Koehler said on Thursday (November 9) anti-semitism was still present in Germany as he attended the consecration of a new synagogue in Munich 68 years after the 1938 Nazi pogrom against the Jews. "Still today our dream of a normal Jewish life in Germany clashes with the reality that there is open and latent anti-semitism and the number of violent acts motivated by right-wing extremism is rising," Koehler said. "It is the duty of all of us to get involved and act to prevent people being abused, injured or even murdered due to their religion, origin or appearance," he added. About 800 guests attended the ceremony in the Bavarian capital where Adolf Hitler's Nazi movement put down its roots in the 1920s. The site of Munich's new synagogue is a few minutes walk from the building where Nazi propaganda chief Josef Goebbels delivered the speech that paved the way for the Nov. 9-10, 1938 pogrom known as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass. Hundreds of synagogues were destroyed across Germany and in parts of Austria, Jewish homes and stores were ransacked and Jews were attacked and beaten to death. Munich's old main synagogue in the Herzog Max Strasse had been demolished in June 1938 and two other houses of worship were destroyed by the Nazis on Kristallnacht. The new synagogue has a modern box-like design and is meant to represent a combination of temple and tent. It is sited in St. Jakobs Square in the city centre and a community centre and museum being built alongside are due to be completed in March. The 57 million euros ($73 million) cost of the synagogue and community centre was provided mainly by the Jewish community, with cash also coming from the state of Bavaria, the city of Munich and private and corporate donations. Koehler said it was painful to recall that a neo-Nazi group had planned a bomb attack on the foundation-laying ceremony for the new community centre in 2003. However, he said he was especially pleased that so many Munich citizens, including non-Jews, had donated money to the project. "That's an important signal," he said. Munich's Jewish community was established in the Middle Ages and grew to around 11,000 by the beginning of the 20th century. On April 30, 1945 American troops taking the city toward the end of the Second World War found less than 100 Jews left. The community has been boosted recently by arrivals from the former Soviet Union and now numbers around 9,000, the second-biggest in Germany after Berlin.
ITN Source | November 10, 2006
