ISAAK BEHAR always sleeps badly on the night of November 9th. But this year, the 85-year-old Berliner, one of the last surviving eyewitnesses of Kristallnacht, is particularly upset, writes Derek Scallyin Berlin
Seventy years ago, this newspaper reported on the "Jews' Day of Trial", of "synagogues razed, looting of shops, books and garments of rabbi torn to pieces".
Over 200 synagogues in Germany were destroyed in the "night of broken glass", described by Nazi officials as a "spontaneous demonstration" of outrage after a Jewish teenager murdered a Nazi diplomat in Paris.
Some 92 Jews were killed and up to 30,000 others deported to concentration camps.
Today, Mr Behar says it is "disgraceful" that the 70th anniversary of that night has come amid a rise in anti-Semitic violence in Germany and a series of gaffes by public figures.
"I was 15 years at the time and lived diagonally opposite the synagogue on the Fasanenstrasse. We saw live from our window the terrible evening. My mother wailed, 'Today it's the stones that are burning, soon it'll be people burning'," said Mr Behar, the only one of his family of five to survive the Holocaust.
"Today I'm just very sad that anti-Semitism and xenophobia in my country is increasing, and that it has reached the heart of our society."
Official figures show that the number of anti-Semitic crimes in Germany rose to almost 800 between January and September 2008, an increase of 81 from the same period in 2007.
Last week, leading economist Hans-Werner Sinn compared the search for scapegoats for the 1929 financial crash and the current financial crisis. "Back then in Germany it hit the Jews; today it's the managers," he said, apologising only after outrage at the remark.
He was followed this week by Christian Democratic (CDU) politician Christian Wulff, considered Chancellor Merkel's most likely successor as party leader. During a discussion about public odium regarding highly-paid managers on Thursday, he said: "We cannot allow a pogrom mood to be spread against people who secure tens of thousands of jobs and pay millions in taxes."
He declined to retract his remark on air but, following a public outcry, issued a press release yesterday expressing "regret" for the "comparison to the Jewish persecution and the terrible pogroms against the Jews".
"It's no longer just skinhead idiots who say these terrible things in Germany, but politicians too," said Mr Behar. "I don't believe any more that these remarks are gaffes. They're too frequent. Next year's an election year and they're happy to go fishing on the right-wing fringes."
A Bundestag resolution condemning anti-Semitism was turned into a political football earlier this week between the CDU and the Left Party. The CDU refused to vote on the same petition as the opposition Left Party, accusing it of harbouring politicians with anti-Semitic views.
The Left Party had to vote on an identical motion with identical text; 11 of its MPs voted against what they called an attempt to "discredit anyone who expresses criticism of the martial policies of Nato, the US and Israel as anti-Semitic and anti-American".
"I think it's about time that all German political parties grew up. The fact is that every one of them have their anti-Semitic members," said Stephan Kramer, general secretary of the Committee of Jews in Germany.
The only winners in the politicking over the anti-Semitism resolution, he said, were Germany's extreme-right fringe parties.
"It's been their goal to break the solidarity of the democratic parties, to sow discord, divide and conquer. I just didn't think it would happen so soon."