A huge new synagogue, Europe’s largest Jewish centre, was opened in the heart of Munich yesterday to mark the 68th anniversary of Kristallnacht — the Night of Broken Glass — when Nazis went on an anti-Semitic rampage across Germany.

The cube-shaped building is an act of defiance at a time when anti-Semitic sentiment is again beginning to bubble below the surface.

Neo-Nazis plotted unsuccessfully to blow up the foundation stone of the new synagogue, and bureaucrats dragged their feet for decades before agreeing to give the prime site to the Jewish community.

“This building shows that we Jews are again part of German society,” said Charlotte Knobloch, the leader of Germany’s Jewish community. She choked back tears as she recalled how, as a frightened six-year-old, she had clutched her father’s hand and run past burning Jewish shops in Munich on November 9, 1938. “Now I have just handed the key to this new synagogue to a child who is the same age as I was on that night. The circle has been closed.”

A survey published by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a social justice charity, demonstrates how controversial the new centre will be among Germans: 39 per cent of those questioned say that the country is being dangerously swamped by foreigners, 18 per cent that the influence of Jews is too great while 15 per cent want a strong leader, literally a Führer.

There is deeper anti-Semitism and xenophobia in western Germany than in the east. Most commentators had assumed that the former communist east was the most vulnerable to racism. “It is shocking how far Nazi prejudices have simply been taken over,” said the newspaper Die Welt.

The Jewish community will now have to take a stand against these simmering resentments. In Munich it is barely 9,000 strong, yet the new Jewish centre houses not only a synagogue but also a kindergarten, school, youth centre, conference hall and restaurant.

The hope is that the building will help the Jewish population to increase. “There is a vitality in the Jewish community,” said Mrs Knobloch. “It is coming back to Germany and it is becoming visible again.” The German Establishment welcomed the new centre. President Köhler and Edmund Stoiber, the Prime Minister of Bavaria, described the rise of the Jewish community as a touchstone of social tolerance.

The new building has been made to resemble what is believed to be the design of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem.

The complex, though heavily guarded, is open to non-Jews and its architects hope this will be enough to bridge the gulf between the Jewish community and its Munich neighbours.

A BLACK DAY

'No foreign propagandist bent upon blackening Germany before the world could outdo the tale of burnings and beatings, of blackguardly assaults upon defenceless and innocent people, which disgraced that country yesterday. Either the German authorities were a party to this outbreak or their powers over public order and a hooligan minority are not what they are proudly claimed to be'

The Times, leading article, November 11, 1938

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