Events marking the 52nd anniversary of Kristallnacht this past weekend were held in cities and towns throughout Germany.
In Dortmund, Prime Minister Johannes Rau of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia on Monday unveiled a memorial for the town’s Jews who perished in the Holocaust.
The memorial, in the form of a plaque, was erected on the site of a former synagogue.
Rau warned against renewed anti-Semitism in the country, saying that previous waves of anti-Semitic feelings ended up hurting everybody, including the Germans themselves.
The actual date of Kristallnacht, or the Night of the Broken Glass, is Nov. 9-10, the night in 1938 when Nazis broke the windows of synagogues and Jewish shops and beat up Jews in the first organized pogrom in Nazi Germany.
The date has been overshadowed here since it was that day last year when the Berlin Wall was breached.
But a number of speakers who addressed various ceremonies throughout Germany warned that the day should not be forgotten for its sad memories.
The sorrow and shame of the persecution of the country’s Jews must never be forgotten, they said.
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