Austrian authorities have launched an investigation after a Kristallnacht commemoration ceremony in a local town was shockingly disrupted by the blaring sound of a speech by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
On Sunday, about 50 people gathered in Mödling, a town in Lower Austria just south of Vienna, for a memorial ceremony at the former site of the town’s synagogue — burned down during the November 1938 pogroms — to honor the victims.
However, the event was abruptly disrupted when, during a planned musical segment of the ceremony, a clip of a speech by Hitler was blasted from a nearby residential building for about a minute and a half.
On Nov. 9, 1938, Nazi paramilitary forces launched a coordinated nationwide attack on the German Jewish community — burning synagogues, destroying homes and businesses, and deporting thousands — a violent event that has come to be remembered as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass.
The onslaught left at least 91 Jews dead and 30,000 Jewish men arrested and sent to concentration camps. Over 7,000 Jewish-owned stores were looted.
Shortly after Sunday’s commemoration event was disrupted, the city of Mödling swiftly filed an official complaint.
City councillor Stephan Schimanova told Austrian media that the recording was “extremely loud,” leaving attendees completely “speechless.”
“There was a great deal of consternation. It was just sick,” he continued.
Now, local authorities have launched an investigation into the suspect’s alleged neo-Nazi activity, after police searched his home on Wednesday and seized “technical equipment.”
This latest incident comes amid a wave of attacks across Europe that disrupted commemorations of the November 1938 pogroms and targeted Jewish communities in an increasingly hostile climate.
In Germany, about 15 people gathered on Sunday in a local park in Baden-Württemberg, in the southwest of the country, many waving Israeli flags, to pray and take part in a commemoration honoring the victims of Kristallnacht.
The event was also disrupted when a group of men stormed the ceremony, waving Palestinian flags and shouting “Free Palestine” along with other antisemitic insults.
Attendees told German media that the assailants hurled insults, calling them “sons of bitches” and shouting “death to Israel.” One of the attackers also snatched an Israeli flag from a participant and fled, later attempting to set it ablaze.
According to local police, a 17-year-old Syrian refugee was arrested shortly afterward, though the investigation into the incident remains ongoing.
The Interior Minister of Baden-Württemberg, Thomas Strobl, condemned the attack, sounding the alarm over the growing entrenchment of antisemitism in German society today.
“It is shameful and completely unacceptable how antisemitic hatred, incitement, and violence have spread through our streets,” Strobl said.
In Denmark, meanwhile, local authorities in Randers, a city in the eastern part of the country, are investigating reports of vandalism at a Jewish cemetery that occurred during the anniversary of the 1938 Nazi pogroms.
While there was no graffiti or political slogans found on site, several headstones were toppled and some were damaged, with authorities considering a possible antisemitic motive.
Five years ago, two men with ties to a neo-Nazi group were convicted of extensive vandalism at the same cemetery.
