A 17-year-old was arrested in Lahr im Schwarzwald after attempting to set an Israeli flag on fire during a memorial event for the November 1938 pogroms. Police also detained a 32-year-old man for insulting participants and are searching for a third unknown suspect. No one was injured.
On Sunday, around 15 people gathered with Israeli flags in Friedrich-Ebert-Park in Lahr im Schwarzwald to remember the victims of the November 1938 pogroms and pray. The Pogromnacht on November 9, 1938, saw synagogues burning across Germany, shops looted and destroyed, and Jewish women and men mistreated, arbitrarily arrested, and murdered.
A group of young men, who had accidentally come upon the event, disrupted the gathering with loud shouts and insults. During the incident, the 17-year-old stole a flag and attempted to set it on fire. Police reported that the youth was arrested as part of a manhunt. The 32-year-old was also detained for allegedly insulting the participants. A third man, who reportedly damaged another flag, remains unknown and is being sought.
In a broader context, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned during a commemorative event against right-wing extremist forces and antisemitism. He stated: "The German democracy is currently threatened by a Russian aggressor and right-wing extremist forces in the country." Similar incidents occurred elsewhere, such as in Pasewalk in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, where unknowns vandalized a memorial plaque for the former synagogue.