Germany planned nationwide commemorations on November 9 for the 88th anniversary of the Nazi pogroms against Jewish people, with President Frank-Walter Steinmeier due to attend a ceremony at the Buchenwald memorial near Weimar and Chancellor Friedrich Merz scheduled to visit a synagogue event in Munich.
The pogroms took place on November 9 and 10, 1938, when Nazi-organized mobs attacked Jewish communities, destroyed businesses and set synagogues on fire. A German government statement says more than 1,400 synagogues were burned, alongside the destruction of Jewish homes and shops.
At Buchenwald, Steinmeier was expected to lay a wreath and deliver a speech at the memorial on the site of the former concentration camp. The ceremony’s program included a reading about 9,845 Jewish men deported to Buchenwald in November 1938, according to the Federal Environment Ministry.
Merz was set to attend an event marking 20 years of Munich’s Ohel Jakob Main Synagogue. The synagogue opened 68 years to the day after the city’s main synagogue was destroyed during the pogroms, according to the Federal Chancellery.
November 9 is also associated with the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989, when East Berliners crossed into West Berlin. The date therefore recalls both a Nazi-era assault on Jewish life and a turning point that later led to German reunification.