Some 10,000 Hasidim, mostly members of the Satmar community, held a prayer vigil in front of the German Consulate here Monday afternoon to protest plans by a German development firm to build a shopping mall on the site of a Jewish cemetery in Hamburg.
The Ottensen Cemetery has been a battleground for the development firm, Bull-Liedtke Company, and Jewish protesters since construction of the shopping mall was scheduled to commence in the beginning of March.
Carrying placards which read “German Government! Don’t Throw Out 4,000 Jewish Dead From Their Graves,” the all-male crowd stood for more than two hours in the rain, blocking rush-hour traffic on Manhattan’s Park Avenue.
The vigil was sponsored by Athra Kadisha–the Society for the Preservation of Jewish Holy Sites — and the Central Rabbinical Congress, a Satmar group.
“Germany has a responsibility to be sensitive to the Jewish people,” New York state Attorney General Robert Abrams, a Democratic contender for the Senate, told the crowd. “Fifty years after the Holocaust we find that 4,000 Jewish graves are to be destroyed. We pray and plead with the German government not to allow another act of desecration to occur. We will not suffer anymore indignity.”
Jeff Wiesenfeld, a representative of Sen. Alphonse D’Amato (R-N.Y.) addressed the crowd in Yiddish, as did most of the other speakers.
“This event clearly cuts across religious lines,” he said. “If the German government does not honor our dead, we can only fear for how they will treat the living,” he added.
‘SPECIAL RESPONSIBILITY’ TO JEWS
Before the vigil, Rep. Benjamin Gilman (R-N.Y.) and representatives from the Satmar group were invited to meet with a representative from the German Consulate.
“He promised to transmit the message to the German government and we hope that they will listen,” said Rabbi Hertz Frankel, chairman of Athra Kadisha and the Central Rabbinical Congress.
Although the Ottensen Cemetery has not been used as a burial ground since 1934, Athra Kadisha maintains that, in accordance with Jewish law, the remains of the 4,000 Jews buried there should not be disturbed.
After the Holocaust, surviving Jews who returned to Hamburg did not have the resources to take care of the cemetery, and therefore sold the site to the German government. More recently, members of the Hamburg Jewish community have said they regretted the decision.
“It is sad and shocking that the German authorities claim that the company controlling the cemetery is legally permitted to dig there, while completely ignoring the religious background of that sacred burial ground,” said Frankel.
“Legal pretenses aside, the government of Germany has a special responsibility to the Jews,” he said.
Similar rallies are being held around the world this week, including in Hamburg. Hasidic Jews from the United States, Israel and Europe have demonstrated at the cemetery several times in the past few weeks.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
