In Berlin, hundreds of Holocaust Survivors Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights to celebrate these days. Many worry before a new hatred of the Jews and before that the genocide of the Nazis is not forgotten.
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Berlin: Hanukkah in honor of the Holocaust survivors
Leonid gdańsk is ninety. Since September. “But Hanukkah, I celebrate for 20 years, since I’m in Germany.” It almost sounds apologetic.
Gdańsk is one of the 300 Jews of old, to celebrate this afternoon in Berlin, together Hanukkah, the Jewish light. There are Holocaust Survivors, many of them with a terribly heavy history. Berlin has in the eight days of this Jewish Festival, a variety of official celebrations. At the Brandenburg gate, the largest Hanukkah menorah in Europe stands. Times Federal President of Germany, Frank Walter Steinmeier, light a candle, sometimes the foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, a local politician.
The light remained
The largest Hanukkah menorah in Europe stands at the Brandenburg gate in Berlin
But no date is so touching as the Ceremony at the Jewish community center in Charlottenburg. Many of the guests go on the floor, some of them come with the Rollator. In the crush in front of the festively decorated hall an old man comes to the case, needs help and stays. The Hanukkah Festival is much older than the Christian Advent. It is about gratitude to God for the wonderful Work 2200 years ago, by the light in the temple, remained alive, although it was missing but actually in the Oil. A pious family also merry Christmas. Who sits here in the parish hall, usually old and often alone.
Festive food, colorful backdrop in the Jewish community center
For the second Time, there is the “International Holocaust Survivors Night” of Hanukkah. In Jerusalem and New York, in Moscow and Berlin Survivors to come together. “Your Survival is a miracle such as Chanukah,” says welcome Rüdiger Mahlo, representative of the Claims Conference in Germany, organized the Meeting. And he speaks of the concern of Holocaust Survivors, “that the memory of the Shoah, lost in their Suffering, to their Survival”.
Life stories
Every word here is translated into Russian. Because people who came in front of a good 20, 25 years, mostly from Russia and the Ukraine to Germany to sit most of the time. Several, such as Nonna Revzina (82) survived the 900-day siege of Leningrad, one of the most terrible Chapter of German attack war in Russia. Assia Gorban (85) from the Ukraine survived the Ghetto, cattle cars in the illegality. Oljean Ingster (90) was stored in eight concentration, also on the death March to Sachsenhausen.
Leonid gdańsk came from Kiev to Berlin
And Leonid Gdańsk. He was born in Kiev, during the Nazi years, he was with his mother in Samara on the Volga river. Over two decades ago he came to Germany, to Berlin. “The Jewish life I learned in Germany,” he says. In Kiev, he knew no Jewish community, in Berlin, he goes to the synagogue in the Rykestraße in Prenzlauer Berg. “I only speak German very slowly. But I understand everything.” German culture and history he had learned on the Internet. And pride, he mentions sons and grandchildren.
Asking for forgiveness
Six Talk, the arrive has a hard time against the noise level in the room, there, between, goodbye, have a Chat and a festive meal. In the case of Michelle Müntefering, it will be quiet in the hall. The Minister of state at the Federal foreign office, welcomed with a word of Russian, the once of Federal President Johannes Rau in Israel spoken of the “ask forgiveness,” tells of her visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial a few days ago. “Stand together against anti-Semitism!”, she says, before she closes with a “Chag Sameach” (Happy holiday) and a few other words in Hebrew.
Charlotte Knobloch, a Holocaust Survivor and Reference
But the most important speech by Charlotte Knobloch. The 86-year-old former President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany is one of them. The Munich survived the Nazi period in hiding in the country. Hanukkah, she says, “means to trust. Then, as now. That I have survived, I can’t understand otherwise.” Knobloch comes to the hatred of Jews in Germany to speak. They complained of the presence of extreme Right-wing in the Bundestag and growing “aggressive rejection of the memory of the Holocaust”, making the anti-Semitism, “back in style”. “We’re there, we stay there,” she says proudly.
Three Lights
Then you go on stage. The very old and the younger Official, a Rabbi for the official texts. And old, trembling hands kindle three lights on. It is the third night of Hanukkah in Berlin.