By Rafael Seligmann
Historian Rafael Seligmann on turning a blind eye to hatred of Jews – then and now.
November 9th is German History Day. People marched, pillaged, murdered, hid, died, denounced, dared and won.
Since it is a German day, it is also a day for the Jews – because we are inextricably intertwined, have lived together in the same country for 1,700 years, speak the same language – the Jews felt it as Yiddish, as a portable homeland when they were forced were from Germany to flee.
November 9th stands for horror: On November 9, 1938, Hitler gave the signal for the so-called “Reichskristallnacht” through his propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels in Munich. As a result, more than a thousand synagogues and prayer rooms were ransacked, desecrated and destroyed, primarily by SA gangs.
Several hundred Jews were murdered, three hundred took their own lives, thousands of houses and businesses were demolished, and tens of thousands of Jewish men were deported to concentration camps.
Many Germans were horrified. But there was almost no protest anywhere. The indifference of many encouraged Hitler to act against the Jews with unprecedented cruelty.
From the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 9, 1938, a consistent path leads to Auschwitz. The lack of resistance in Germany and around the world encouraged Hitler in his plan to destroy the Jews.
“The Germans have learned from their history”
November 9th also represents a triumph of freedom: The fall of the Berlin Wall was the result of a peaceful revolution. It shows: The Germans have learned from their history. On this day, the longing for freedom and democracy triumphed.
What do these two events have to do with the present?
The lesson is: Freedom and human dignity are not guaranteed to citizens indefinitely. They can only thrive if people stand up for democratic values.
Freedom and human dignity can only be achieved through the energetic efforts of citizens, but above all it can only be ensured in the long term in this way. The connection to October 7, 2023 becomes clear here, when 1,400 people were murdered and more than 200 kidnapped in Israel by the Islamist Hamas.
Yes, the Palestinians have suffered injustice in many ways. But this is not a justification for mass murder and certainly not for the shameless celebration of this crime worldwide and also in Germany.
Anyone who accepts these and related demonstrations without saying a word or even tries to justify them has learned nothing from the history of November 9th, or from German history in general.
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Rafael Seligmann (76) is a historian, political scientist, journalist and writer. His book “Arsonists and Followers” will be published soon. Hitler, Putin, Trump. Why they are successful and how you can stop them” published by Herder Verlag.