ANNUAL MEMORIAL

Commemoration of the November Pogroms

In 1954, the Jewish Community of Wiesbaden and the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation began a public commemoration of the November pogroms. Since 1989, the state capital Wiesbaden has co-organized the annual commemoration.

The former site of the old synagogue on the Michelsberg is the place of commemoration of the November pogroms in 1938. Since 1954, the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation Wiesbaden (GCJZ) and the Jewish Community Wiesbaden have commemorated the destruction of Wiesbaden’s synagogues in November 1938 – which also marked the first escalation of violence against Jews – with a joint event. The pogroms marked the beginning of the Shoah.

With few exceptions, the commemorative events have taken place in the Heinrich-Heine-Anlage since the memorial stele was erected in 1953. Today, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Wiesbaden stands at the site. Until 1988, the GCJZ and the Jewish Community were the organizers. In 1989, the state capital Wiesbaden and the Jewish Community jointly commemorated the victims of the Shoah for the first time. Since 1992 the GCJZ is again co-responsible. Since the first commemoration, representatives of the state capital Wiesbaden have participated as speakers and helped shape the event. Since 2001, the program has also been planned together with students from a Wiesbaden school dealing with the memory of the Shoah and by young people from the Jewish Community of Wiesbaden.