BRUSSELS, 9 NOVEMBER 2008 – More than 500 political and Jewish leaders from across Europe have attended a «Kristallnacht » Memorial Service at the Great Synagogue of Europe. Holocaust survivors gave very personal and emotional impressions of 9 November 1938, when in Nazi Germany synagogues set ablaze and many Jews were attacked and murdered. Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress (EJC), reminded the audience that still today with Iranian regime there was another big threat to the Jews and the world as a whole.
In his address, Kantor stated: “Seventy years later, Jewish lives and Jewish property are yet again facing the forces of hate and barbarism. The forces of hate, anti-Semitism and intolerance are in many ways stronger. Iran is developing military nuclear power. Iran is continuing the threat against the Jewish communities in Latin America. Iran’s leader makes anti-Semitic statements at the United Nations General Assembly and no representative of any state gets up and leaves the hall in disgust and protest. We need to ask ourselves every day: have we done everything in our power to alert the world?”

Kantor criticized European companies doing business with Iran: “Today, 6,000 European companies – despite all governmental declarations – collaborate with Iranian regime. Total turnover of such collaboration is 100 billion dollars. An interesting fact: the countries of the former Hitler and anti-Hitler coalitions use dual-purpose technologies to create together with Iran the warheads for future nuclear weapon. Again we are observing it, seventy years after the first lesson.”

Referring to the more than 50 million victims of World War II all over Europe, Kantor concluded: “Observers and bystanders always pay the highest price of intolerance.”