From Hildburg Bruns
A young teacher was the first speaker in front of the Brandenburg Gate. And what Paula Ranft (26) said got under your skin. She talked about a Palestinian student in Charlottenburg and a German friend who is now sitting in a bunker in Israel.
Their demand: “These Islamist barbarians must be stopped! No matter whether in the Gaza Strip or in Berlin.”
Paula Ranft teaches politics and history. Now at the Jewish High School (Mitte), formerly in Charlottenburg. When the topic of the Middle East conflict was on the timetable, a student with a Palestine chain around his neck stood up. “He portrayed himself as a victim and lobbied one-sidedly against Israel as if it were the most natural thing in the world.”
Teacher Paula Ranft shows a photo of her friend Noa, who is currently sitting in the bunker in Israel Photo: Hildburg Bruns
Not an isolated case. The teacher: “This is already a reality in Berlin schools. In Germany. That’s why it was unfortunately no surprise that people were handing out sweets undisturbed on Sonnenallee to celebrate the murder of Jews.”
And then the young woman talks about her friend Noa Luft (26) from Cologne, who went to Israel to study and is now sitting in a bunker in Tel Aviv. She reads out their notes from the last few hours. How she was woken from her sleep, found lots of push messages on her cell phone and rushed into the stairwell.
On cold steps, the German Jew scrolled through her cell phone messages, jumping from live stream to live stream. She saw: “Young adults are being massacred, raped, murdered. In that moment I realize: It’s different.”
For teacher Paula in Berlin it is clear: “Protecting the state is a German raison d’être. Words must be followed by actions. Because if the situation in Israel escalates, Israeli flags will burn on German streets here too.“