Holocaust survivor on ‘very dangerous’ AfD Saxony-Anhalt win

Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, is dismayed by the electoral victory of the nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in the Saxony-Anhalt state election. Knobloch told DW that there were now once again a number of Jewish people who, in the wake of such events, were considering leaving Germany.

It took decades, Knobloch said, for Jews in Germany to regain trust in the country after the Holocaust. That had ultimately been achieved. But now, fear has returned.

“That is, in sum, the biggest problem for me, because we successfully tried to rebuild the Jewish communities after 1945, to give the Jewish people a home again, which they hadn’t had for a long time,” she said.

Standing up against the far right ‘requires some courage’

In Saxony-Anhalt’s September 6 state election, the AfD, classified as “confirmed right-wing extremist” by the state’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution, received almost 44% of the vote. Although AfD lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund fell short of an absolute majority, he still has a good chance of becoming the next premier in the state parliament, meaning he’d become the first head of a state government from a right-wing extremist party after World War II.

“We can’t allow any of those people to become state premier,” said Knobloch. “It is a very dangerous situation at the moment, in my view. I hope the other parties realize that and stand up against it. They can do it. It requires some courage.”

At almost 94 years old, Knobloch is one of the most prominent and well-known representatives of Jewish life in Germany and one of the last surviving witnesses of Nazi dictatorship between 1933 and 1945. Born in 1932, she was initially raised by her grandmother, who was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942 and died there. A family acquaintance saved the girl by accommodating her on her farm in Middle Franconia and passing her off as her own child.

‘Danger looming’

Knobloch said she still thinks about that horrible era every day.

“There were times when this happened only rarely. When it was mentioned by the media from time to time, but not permanently. These days, I wake up thinking about it, and I also go to bed thinking about it,” she said.

Knobloch served as vice president of the World Jewish Congress from 2005 to 2013, and as president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany from 2006 to 2010. She has been warning against growing antisemitism in Germany for years, but even she did not foresee the rise of far-right extremist parties like the AfD.

“There’s a danger looming that did not exist in this form 10 years ago,” she said. “There have always been Nazis, there have always been Jew haters, but not in the way as it’s the case today.”

In Knobloch’s view, the established parties have up to now failed to speak out decisively against the AfD. “Today’s political parties must jointly, not alone, address the issue,” she said. “I still see a chance here, that people will at least be willing to listen and discuss it. And that’s very, very important.”

Young people need to be included in the conversation

Knobloch said politicians have to speak more intensively with people and address their fears, especially with young people, adding that this isn’t happening enough. 

“There’s talk about it, but there is no real discussion, because young people are naturally afraid that what they say will become public. What I want to say is, we’ll have to find ways to bring young people back into the fold,” she said.

After speaking out against the AfD in the wake of the election, Knobloch was targeted with death threats. On Thursday, a witness discovered the scrawled threats on a park bench and a rubbish bin in the English Garden in Munich and informed the police, according to a police headquarters statement. Knobloch subsequently canceled her attendance at an event. The threats were directly linked to the AfD’s election victory in Saxony-Anhalt, a spokeswoman said in response to a query from the dpa news agency.

This article was originally written in German.