At least 100,000 Germans demonstrated all over the country Saturday to protest the escalation of attacks on foreigners by neo-Nazis and demanded that the government do something about it.
The marches, which included church and labor leaders, took place in some 100 cities. The huge turnout coincided with the 53rd anniversary of Kristallnacht, the first officially sanctioned pogrom in the Third Reich, which occurred during the night of Nov- 9-10, 1938.
The demonstrations marked, as well, the second anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In Cologne, some 40,000 marchers carried window frames with broken glass, to recall both Kristallnacht and recent violence.
Tens of thousands marched in Berlin, too.
Violence in Germany, particularly in the eastern part of the country, has been palpably racist, aimed mainly at Africans, Asians and East European refugees seeking asylum. But the Jewish community is deeply disturbed.
In fact, even as anti-racist marches were taking place, attacks flared in Wismar, a northern port in eastern Germany, where right-wing youths fought foreign students in a university cafeteria and dormitory.
Saarbrucken, in the southwest corner of Germany, near the French border, was the scene of the largest anti-racist rally, which brought out both government and opposition politicians.
Neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremists tried to stage counter-rallies. But they were vastly outnumbered by anti-Nazi crowds, who bloodied them in street clashes.
Neo-Nazis also marched in the eastern German city of Leipzig. In nearby Halle, about 400 neo-Nazis marched, screaming, “Sieg heil!” and ” Foreigners out!” They ended their parade a few hundred yards from where some 2,000 anti-Nazis had gathered.
Israel Singer, secretary-general of the World Jewish Congress, who was in Berlin to observe the Kristallnacht anniversary, suggested that neo-Nazism in Germany would hardly be a problem if the authorities attacked it with as much zeal as they do the crimes of former East German Communists.
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