Barely a week passes without a report: Jews are insulted on the internet and even attacked in the street; they cannot identify themselves as Jews in public through religious symbols; they are bullied at school; antisemitic incidents are played down; and antisemites and historical revisionists sit in parliaments. All the more important, then, to recall again and again the unprecedented discrimination, persecution and murder of millions of European Jews by Germans. In the November pogroms 80 years ago, a deep-seated antisemitism centuries old broke through. Even if its form has changed in part, the substance remains the same: antisemitism never went away. The purpose of remembrance, alongside honouring the victims, is to build a bridge into the present and to draw consequences for the future. Today, too, it must be recognised in its various codings, named and combated. Antisemitism is showing itself ever more openly today, often also in new guises, for instance when it is directed against the State of Israel. “Don’t buy from Jews” becomes “Don’t buy from Zionists”. The declared intention to combat antisemitism, voiced frequently above all around 9 November, unfortunately fails regularly when it comes to putting it into practice. It is time for democrats to defend our values of the free democratic basic order and to act together, actively, against antisemitism. Not only on 9 November.
