ANNUAL MEMORIAL

Commemoration of the November pogroms in 1938 on November 10, 1963 in the Heinrich-Heine-Anlage. Photo: Joachim B. Weber. StadtA WI, F000-682
Commemoration of the November pogroms in 1938 on November 10, 1963 in the Heinrich-Heine-Anlage. Photographer: Joachim B. Weber. StadtA WI, F000-491
Mayor Georg Buch speaks at the commemoration ceremony on November 10, 1963. photographer: Joachim B. Weber. StadtA WI, F000-490
Commemoration of the November pogroms in 1938 on November 10, 1963 in the Heinrich-Heine-Anlage. Photo: Joachim B. Weber. StadtA WI, F000-682

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.

 

Commemoration of the November pogroms at the memorial for the murdered Wiesbaden Jews. Photographer: Igor Eisenschtat. Collection Jewish Community Wiesbaden
Commemoration of the November pogroms at the memorial for the murdered Wiesbaden Jews. Photographer: Igor Eisenschtat. Collection Jewish Community Wiesbaden
Commemoration of the November pogroms at the memorial for the murdered Wiesbaden Jews. Photographer: Igor Eisenschtat. Collection Jewish Community Wiesbaden

The commemoration is disrupted in 1973

Between 1970 and 1973, the commemoration of the November pogroms took place in the synagogue rather than in the Heinrich-Heine-Anlage. In 1973, the commemoration was disturbed by a group who bawled loudly in front of the synagogue and tried to enter the building. The police had to intervene. The evening before, the same group had already disrupted a lecture organized by the Wiesbaden German-Israeli Society and the Wiesbaden Adult Education Center by distributing leaflets with anti-Semitic content and harassing visitors.

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