About 100 Jews from East and West Berlin demonstrated outside the Soviet Embassy in East Berlin on Monday against anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union.
Holding aloft banners saying “Don’t allow pogroms in the Soviet Union” and “Stop anti-Semitism in your country,” the group delivered an open letter addressed to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
The letter urged speedy action against groups in the Soviet Union that threaten Jews with violence or circulate anti-Semitic material.
An embassy official accepted the letter and told the demonstrators it would be sent to Gorbachev’s office in Moscow.
The official East German news agency ADN reported Tuesday that the demonstration was the first of its kind in East Berlin since 1945.
They were not allowed in past years because neither the Soviet occupation forces nor the East German government would acknowledge there was anti-Semitism in Communist countries.
That changed abruptly with the new regime in East Germany.
Members of both Berlin Jewish communities, meanwhile, said their joint demonstration was a sign the communities were “growing together.”
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