Since the terrorist attack of hall, the members of the Jewish community in the East of Dessau fear. You regularly get threatening letters, but your municipality will receive little protection.
“If something like in the hall in our municipality would have happened, then there would be many Deaths,” says Alexander Aquarius and looking for a Moment to the door of his office. “We have no security.”
Aquarius is for nearly twenty years Chairman of the Jewish community in Dessau is only about 50 kilometers away from Halle, the venue of the right-wing extremist attack on Wednesday. In hall, the Synagogentür has failed and the believers so comfortable in front of a massacre preserved.
“Our main door since 1904,” says Alexander Aquarius. He points to the wood of the window next to her. These are around 100 years old.
“My life is more valuable than the prayer”
“We are all shocked. Many members of our community are afraid. We have many older people who say: ‘My life is more valuable than the prayer, then I prefer to stay at home’.” Aquarius sits with two colleagues at the long Desk of the municipal offices. Their eyes are serious. Since of the fact in hall, you talk about almost nothing else. “I don’t feel safe,” says a younger colleague, Aquarius, with tears in the eyes. Your name don’t want to call them. You have too much fear, especially your daughter.
The members of the Jewish community of Dessau worry about your safety
In his long time as a Chairman Alexander Wassermann has experienced radical right-wing incitement and threats of murder. He takes a few notes – anti-Semitic threatening letters. Again and again, the municipality receives such a Post, often printed with swastikas and pictures of Adolf Hitler.
Aquarius stands on the steps in front of the entrance door to the parish house. Some time ago, it was daubed with a swastika. Now the door is no longer painted over, to see the swastika. But the fear remains. “We can’t change the Situation, we have no power,” says Aquarius and shrugs his shoulders. “What can we do?”
Alexander Wassermann, Chairman of the Jewish community in Dessau: “We have no security”
No support for security
He has long tried to get financial support for more protection. However, the municipality in the East of Dessau is small – around 300 members. Money for security, you did not. All the money flows in the construction of the new synagogue, which was destroyed in 1938 by the national socialists. Half a year ago Aquarius wrote a letter to the interior Ministry of Saxony-Anhalt. However, the refused, at the time, financial support for security measures.
Aquarius resents it: “We need security measures, we have no other option. It comes to the safety of our members. And the lives of our members costs more than safety measures. If something happens…Who’s to blame?”
Since the attack, the police stands in front of the municipality house
They want to live here in the Jewish community in the rest of the Faith. The members are proud of what you have built. Rebuilt – because the Jewish life played in Dessau was once a large role. The philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, was born here, like Kurt Weill, composer of ‘the Threepenny Opera’. Weill’s father was here, Cantor – in the same city in which Jewish life takes place today out of fear, almost just behind the Church walls.
Now, shortly after the attack in the hall, here is a police car in front of the door. But how long he stays, don’t know Alexander Aquarius.