Anti-Semitism and far-right extremism are rising, while minorities' religious freedoms are being limited, says Pinchas Goldschmidt, who heads the Conference of European Rabbis. He fears for Jews' very existence.
Image: DW/O. Rolofs
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The Conference of European Rabbis (CER) is holding its 31st convention this week in Antwerp, bringing together around 350 Jewish leaders from across Europe. CER President Pinchas Goldschmidt, the Zurich-born chief rabbi of Moscow, spoke with DW about his concerns for the future of European Jewry.
DW: Rabbi Goldschmidt, nationalism, populism and anti-Semitism are on the rise around Europe. How do you see things for Jews on the continent?
PG: The situation is getting harder in Europe for the Jewish community — for many reasons. On one hand, there is the rise of the far-right again — in Germany, Austria and Hungary —who are marching around in brown shirts and SS uniforms. Then there are new laws restricting Jewish life, such as against circumcision and religious slaughter. Overall, we see Europe having much less patience and willingness with defending religious freedom and Jewish communities' safety.
Can you cite examples of this?
Our convention is intentionally happening in Antwerp. Because in Belgium, the center of Europe, with its two regions, Flanders and Wallonia, shechita (ritual slaughter in accordance with Jewish law — Eds.) has simply been banned. Politicians tell us it's not meant to target Jews, but rather Muslims and their practice. Yet Jews are collateral damage.
What kind of contact do you have with the Muslim community?
We started a dialogue with Muslim religious leaders already some years ago. We are part of the King Abdullah Center in Vienna (KAICIID), a Saudi-Austrian-Spanish initiative. Through that, we started the Muslim-Jewish Leadership Council three years ago. Around Europe and on national levels, we work with imams on combating threats to religious freedom. We support these talks even though it isn't always easy. But we believe it's extremely important. Because Jews are not only in danger from the far-right, but also from radical religious Muslims. So that makes dialogue with Muslim leaders really important.
Very. These upcoming elections are extremely important. I think that the strengthening of forces that don't believe in the future of a unified Europe is a major danger for Europe as much as it is for the Jewish communities in Europe.
Are you afraid that Jews will have to leave Europe to be able to live as Jews in their everyday life? Will Europe become a place that de facto drives out Jewish life?
That's already happening. The number of Jews living in Europe has declined in the last 15-to-20 years, from 2 to 1.6 million people. This trend could continue.
'I speak for the dead'
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What do you make of repeated attacks on houses of worship and religious sites — Jewish, Muslim and Christian?
Attacks on places of worship seem to be a trend. If you want to attack a religious minority, you go to their place of worship, because that's where they are concentrated. We saw this in Pittsburgh, in Christchurch and in Sri Lanka. So places of worship are in danger. So we are asking all governments and those responsible to improve security at these places and protect religious communities.
The Holocaust happened across Germany and Europe because of national socialism in Germany. But we're now 75 years beyond the Holocaust. Do you worry that right-wing extremism is also on the rise because history is being forgotten?
That's just it. The problem is that the last survivors and perpetrators are dying. So the Holocaust and the Second World War are being pushed further out of the collective memory. Europe is poised to forget what world wars were like. Europe is poised to forget just how terrible the First and Second World Wars were, and how many millions of lives were lost as a result. Europeans today just think about today, the present. They forget the future and they forget the past.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is January 27. Numerous memorials across Germany ensure the millions of victims are not forgotten.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/M. Schreiber
Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site
A large sculpture stands in front of Dachau. Located just outside Munich, it was the first concentration camp opened by the Nazi regime. Just a few weeks after Adolf Hitler came to power, it was used by the paramilitary SS Schutzstaffel to imprison, torture and kill political opponents of the regime. Dachau also served as a prototype and model for the other Nazi camps that followed.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Wannsee House
The villa on Berlin's Wannsee lake was pivotal in the planning of the Holocaust. Fifteen members of the Nazi government and the SS Schutzstaffel met here on January 20, 1942 to devise what became known as the "Final Solution," the deportation and extermination of all Jews in German-occupied territory. In 1992, the villa where the Wannsee Conference was held was turned into a memorial and museum.
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Holocaust Memorial in Berlin
Located next to the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was inaugurated 60 years after the end of World War II on May 10, 2005, and opened to the public two days later. Architect Peter Eisenman created a field with 2,711 concrete slabs. An attached underground "Place of Information" holds the names of all known Jewish Holocaust victims.
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Memorial to Persecuted Homosexuals
Not too far from the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, another concrete memorial honors the thousands of homosexuals persecuted by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945. The 4-meter high (13-foot) monument, which has a window showing alternately a film of two men or two women kissing, was inaugurated in Berlin's Tiergarten on May 27, 2008.
Image: picture alliance/Markus C. Hurek
Documentation center on Nazi Party rally grounds
Nuremberg hosted the biggest Nazi party propaganda rallies from 1933 until the start of World War II. The annual Nazi Party congress, as well as rallies with as many as 200,000 participants, took place on the 11-square-kilometer (4.25-square-mile) area. Today, the unfinished Congress Hall building serves as a documentation center and a museum.
Image: picture-alliance/Daniel Karmann
German Resistance Memorial Center
The Bendlerblock building in Berlin was the headquarters of a military resistance group. On July 20, 1944, a group of Wehrmacht officers around Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg carried out an assassination attempt on Hitler that ultimately failed. The leaders of the conspiracy were summarily shot the same night in the courtyard of the Bendlerblock. Today, it's the German Resistance Memorial Center.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Bergen-Belsen Memorial
The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Lower Saxony was initially established as a prisoner of war camp before becoming a concentration camp. Prisoners too sick to work were brought here from other concentration camps, and many also died of disease. One of the 50,000 people killed here was Anne Frank, a Jewish girl who gained international fame after her diary was published posthumously.
Image: picture alliance/Klaus Nowottnick
Buchenwald Memorial
Located near the Thuringian town of Weimar, Buchenwald was one of the largest concentration camps in Germany. From 1937 to April 1945, the National Socialists deported about 270,000 people from all over Europe to the camp and murdered 64,000 of them before the camp was liberated by US soldiers in 1945. The site now serves as a memorial to the victims.
Image: Getty Images/J. Schlueter
Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims
Opposite the Reichstag parliament building in Berlin, a park inaugurated in 2012 serves as a memorial to the 500,000 Sinti and Roma people killed by the Nazi regime. Around a memorial pool, the poem "Auschwitz" by Roma poet Santino Spinelli is written in English, Germany and Romani. "Gaunt face, dead eyes, cold lips, quiet, a broken heart, out of breath, without words, no tears," it reads.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
'Stolpersteine' — stumbling blocks as memorials
In the 1990s, artist Gunter Demnig began the project to confront Germany's Nazi past. The brass-covered concrete cubes placed in front of the former homes of Nazi victims show their names, details about their deportation, and murder, if known. As of early 2022, some 100,000 "Stolpersteine" have been laid in over 25 countries across Europe. It's the world's largest decentralized Holocaust memorial.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Brown House in Munich
Right next to the "Führerbau," where Adolf Hitler had his office in Munich, was the headquarters of the Nazi Party, called the Brown House. A white cube now occupies the place where it once stood. In it, the "Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism" opened on April 30, 2015, 70 years after the defeat of the Nazi regime.
