94-Year-Old Witness Returns to Berlin to Confront Rising Antisemitism

George Shefi stood in the Schoeneberg district of Berlin this week, looking at the site of his former Jewish school. He is 94 years old. He returned to Germany to mark the 88th anniversary of Kristallnacht. The event is scheduled for Monday. He is one of the last living witnesses to the 1938 pogrom.

Shefi was six years old on November 9, 1938. His mother, Marie Spiegelglas, kept him home for three days to protect him. When he was allowed outside, the synagogue that housed his school had been burned down. The Jewish hat store across the street had been looted. The windows of the stationery shop next door were smashed. He described the scene as a memory of terror and noise.

"I used to be like a regular Holocaust survivor, I hated the Germans and so forth, but about 10 years ago I came to the conclusion how those kids that I speak to, how can they be to blame for what happened 80 years ago," Shefi said. He now speaks to school groups and other Germans. He believes that understanding the past is necessary to prevent future persecution.

"You have to learn and study it because you aren't responsible for what was, but you'll be responsible in five, 10 years of what's going to happen," Shefi said. "And for that, if you don't know the history of the Holocaust, you can't prevent it anymore."

Kristallnacht, known as the Night of Broken Glass, marked a major escalation in Nazi persecution of Jews. At least 91 people died during the violence. Seven thousand 500 Jewish businesses were vandalized. More than 1,400 synagogues were targeted by arsonists, according to Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial. The events in Germany and Austria involved Nazis and many ordinary Germans.

For Shefi, the night ended his sheltered childhood. In July 1939, when he was seven, his mother placed him on a Kindertransport to England. He traveled with 300 other Jewish children. He never saw his mother again. She was deported to Auschwitz and murdered in 1943. Shefi lived with several foster families in England and survived the German bombing of London during World War II. He later moved to the United States and then settled in Jerusalem, Israel.

In Jerusalem, Shefi raised a family and ran a tool shop. He also served as a volunteer police officer. He recently visited Berlin to share his story with police officers. These officers are visiting Germany to deepen their understanding of the Holocaust and their role in protecting Jewish communities.

Jochen Kopelke, chairman of the German Police Union, joined Shefi for the visit. Kopelke said that many police officers in Germany do not know much about contemporary Jewish life. "We have noticed with many police officers in Germany that they do not know anything about Jewish life," Kopelke told The Associated Press. He emphasized that the police in the Nazi era actively participated in the Shoah, guarded concentration camps, and deported people.

"The police in the Nazi era actively took part in the Shoah, participated, guarded concentration camps, deported people," Kopelke said. "All policemen have to know the history of the police. And that's why today you have to bring policemen to the real world in addition to the historical process."

Phyllis Greenberg Heideman, president of the International March of the Living, said Holocaust education is essential to combating rising antisemitism. The group organizes an annual remembrance event at Auschwitz. "It's daunting, it's difficult, and it's the most important act any one of us can do," Greenberg Heideman said, "to fight and to combat antisemitism as well as all forms of hatred facing the world today."

Shefi said his generation is the last that can tell what happened without others claiming it is not true. He sat on a bench in a nearby park where he was barred from sitting as a Jewish child. He keeps those painful memories alive to help prevent such persecution from happening again.