Swastikas have been daubed on the wall of the New Synagogue in the eastern German city of Dresden on the eve of the 71st anniversary of the Nazi's ‘Kristallnacht’ pogrom in 1938. The interior minister of the state of Saxony, Markus Ulbig, condemned the desecration. “We will not allow such things to happen. In Saxony, there is no place for anti-Semitism,” he said. Uhlig paid a visit to Dresden’s Jewish community on Monday.

The ‘Kristallnacht’ pogrom during the night of 9 to 10 November 1938  saw Nazi thugs plunder Jewish businesses throughout Germany, burn down some 300 synagogues and round up around 30,000 Jewish men for deportation to concentration camps. Historians say the Nazis tested the German public's reaction to the spasm of anti-Semitic violence and the lack of public outcry led them to press on, culminating in the systematic extermination of Jews launched three years later.

WJC and anti-Semitism