Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 27, 1994 TAG: 9403270037
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BERLIN LENGTH: Medium
The attack early Friday, in which neo-Nazis are suspected, charred a room where the city's small Jewish community was to sit down today for the synagogue's first Seder since the Holocaust.
There were no injuries. But the attack wounded the sensibilities of Germans frustrated by a violent minority of Nazi revivalists.
Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel called on Germans to show their disgust with the religious and racial intolerance of rightist militants with demonstrations and candlelight vigils.
"The Germans must make it clear abroad that these attacks are serious isolated incidents . . . of which we are ashamed," Kinkel told the Bild newspaper. Authorities offered a $30,000 reward.
Friday's attack was widely reported as the first synagogue firebombing in Germany since the Nazi era, although a firebomb was thrown onto the steps of an Essen synagogue Feb. 28. It burned itself out without doing damage.
More than 2,500 people rallied before noon on Luebeck's market square Saturday, observing five minutes of silence during which police halted all traffic on the bridges over the city's canals.
"38/94 Synagogues Are Burning Again - Finally Ban All Nazi Organizations," said one banner brought to the rally. In Berlin, about 1,000 people held a 15-minute vigil then marched to the Brandenburg Gate.
On Nov. 9, 1938, Nazi thugs burned Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues across the country. Luebeck's synagogue was among those sacked.
A commentary in the Berlin Morgenpost newspaper said it had "appeared unimaginable until yesterday that here in Germany, two generations after the pogrom night of 1938, fire could again be thrown into a synagogue."
On Saturday, people organized a round-the-clock vigil for the damaged synagogue, which was attacked at 2:20 a.m., shortly after police guards left for the night.
Just 43,000 Jews live in Germany today, compared to about half a million in 1933.
by CNB