At Least This Time Germany Is Warning the Jews

By Howie Silbiger

Majdanek is one of the best preserved Nazi death camps in existence. Its barracks, gas chambers and crematorium are still there, and visitors have been told that the camp is so intact it could be made operational again within days. That is not a particularly comforting thought considering the Chancellor of Germany has just publicly announced that Jewish life in his country is no longer safe.

At least this time they are warning us.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz made the extraordinary admission this week, saying that “Jewish life in Germany is no longer safe” and saying, “The fact that Jewish life in Germany is no longer safe is the most serious burden of recent years.”. The statement came following elections in Berlin that saw Die Linke finish first with 25.7 percent of the vote, ahead of Merz’s CDU, amid growing controversy over anti Jewish activity connected to parts of the Berlin party.

It is a remarkable statement coming from the Chancellor of Germany in 2026. Germany has spent the better part of eight decades assuring the world that it learned something from the last time Jews weren’t safe there. The country is filled with Holocaust memorials, museums, plaques and Stolpersteine marking the homes of Jews who were taken away. German schoolchildren are taught about the Holocaust, politicians mark the anniversaries, governments issue declarations and “Never Again” has become part of the language of modern Germany.

The remembering seems to have gone considerably better than the “never again” part. Germany has become very good at commemorating dead Jews. Keeping living Jews safe has apparently proven more difficult.

This did not happen overnight. Thousands of anti Jewish incidents have been recorded across Germany since October 7, 2023, with Berlin becoming one of the centres of the problem. Jewish schools and synagogues require extensive security, Jewish institutions operate behind locked doors and police officers standing outside places where Jews gather have become so normal that most people barely notice them anymore.

Maybe they should. When children need security to attend a Jewish school and worshippers need police protection to walk into synagogue, the problem is already well beyond speeches about tolerance and remembrance. Germany knows exactly what it means when Jews begin changing the way they live because being visibly Jewish carries a risk. It also knows where allowing hatred of Jews to become socially acceptable can lead.

Merz’s statement came after Die Linke won the Berlin election and its candidate Elif Eralp began trying to assemble a coalition government. The party entered the post election period under scrutiny over anti Jewish rhetoric and activity within parts of its Berlin organization, including an August campaign event where a rapper performed lyrics calling for “Death to the IDF” and an intifada. Eralp later condemned what happened and has said protecting Jewish life in Berlin is an absolute priority.

Berlin makes the whole thing even harder to ignore. This is the city where senior Nazi officials met at Wannsee in 1942 to coordinate the Final Solution, where Jews were deported from their homes and where the machinery of a state built around the persecution and murder of Jews was directed. Eighty four years after Wannsee, Germany’s political leadership is once again discussing whether Jews can safely live in Berlin.

Mel Brooks put Springtime for Hitler at the centre of The Producers because the premise was supposed to be grotesque enough to be funny, Hitler reduced to a ridiculous musical number and turned into something to laugh at.

Nobody needs to stage a revival in Berlin. The historical irony currently playing there is dark enough.

After all the memorials, all the speeches, all the school programs, all the ceremonies and all the promises that Germany would never again allow Jews to live in fear, the Chancellor of Germany is telling the world that Jewish life in his country is no longer safe.

There will be more speeches. There will be more condemnations, more conferences, more police outside synagogues, more security outside Jewish schools and more politicians promising that Germany stands with its Jewish community.

Germany knows this routine very well, and so do the Jews. We have had considerably more practice.

At least this time they are warning us.