Hundreds of people marched through the center of Vienna on Thursday at the initiative of the Israelite Cultural Community (IKG) and the Jewish Youth of Vienna to commemorate the pogroms of November 1938.
Hamas’ terrorist attack was also omnipresent during the candlelight march, which was attended by ministers Karoline Edtstadler (ÖVP) and Leonore Gewessler (Greens), as well as NEOS boss Beate Meinl-Reisinger and acting SPÖ club president Philip Kucher.
On the night of November 9 to 10, 1938, synagogues throughout the “German Empire” were systematically set on fire, Jewish shops were looted and Jews were abused. In Austria alone, at least 30 Jews were murdered, 7,800 arrested, and about 4,000 from Vienna immediately deported to the Dachau concentration camp.
The attacks on November 9, 1938 ended in the gas chambers of Mauthausen, Auschwitz and Treblinka, IKG President Oskar Deutsch recalled in his speech at Judenplatz. But anti-Semitism started “with the word, with the insult, with the lie, with the rumor about the Jews.” The pogroms were ordered from above, but everyone watched and many participated.
IGK criticism of the choice of the rosary
He described it as “scandalous” that 86 years later someone, the Freedom Party’s Walter Rosenkranz, was elected chairman of the National Council, from which the German nationalist brotherhood Libertas had already excluded Jews in the 19th century using the Aryan paragraph.
“We will not forget what happened,” Deutsch emphasized. The German national brotherhoods in the National Council are not Nazis, even though some pay tribute to their ideology in the basement of their brotherhoods, Deutsch says. “They are the successors of the predecessors of the Nazis.”
Hundreds of people had earlier marched from Heldenplatz through the city center to Judenplatz carrying LED candles and signs with the names of synagogues destroyed during the November pogroms. Signs were seen with words such as “No place for hate,” as well as “Take them home now” as a plea to free the last 100 Hamas hostages.
Signs of hope and warning
Representatives of Jewish youth organizations emphasized during the event that the event should be a sign of hope and warning. Today, anti-Semitism is especially visible on social media. Anti-Jewish comments and conspiracy theories are spread there anonymously, often disguised as freedom of expression or criticism of Israel.
Source: Krone
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