28 | JANUARY 12 • 2023 

NEXTDOR
VOICE OF A NEW GENERATION

AN INTENSE 
COMMEMORATION

BY ISAAC VINEBURG

Our group was honored to attend 
a memorial held by Berlin’s Jewish 
community for the 84th anniversa-
ry of Kristallnacht. Held outside the 
former Fasanenstrasse Synagogue, 
destroyed the night of Nov. 9, 
1938, the community gathered to 
remember.
A reading of the names of 
Holocaust victims from Berlin 
began hours before. By the time 
the commemoration began, the 
reader was only at “L” surnames. 
We gathered nearby in front of a 
wall etched with the names of con-
centration camps as a local cantor 
began to chant the El Maleh prayer. 
The shadows cast from the lights 
made for a memorable projection 
of the singer’s silhouette on the 
wall.
It was an intense moment. I love 
the sound of the El Maleh prayer. I 
always find it so moving, although 
I wish we never had to hear it. The 
cantor’s words bounced off the sur-
rounding buildings and filled the 
neighborhood. The loud cries of 
mourning rang through the silence 
of the evening. The neighborhood 
had no choice but to hear a Jewish 
lament. I noticed young people in 
their high-rise apartments looking 
down at us wondering what was 
happening, then leave the window 

and return to their evening. Did 
their grandparents do the same 84 
years ago?
Then, abruptly, the cantor’s cry 
that was so loud and powerful, 
propelling upon the neighborhood 
our feelings of profound grief, was 
drown out by passing trains on an 
elevated track next to the ruined 
synagogue. The train’s wheels 
shrieked against the rail. The 
clacking sounds of the track made 
the cantor’s prayer fade away. His 
pain still projected on the wall, his 
sorrow was muffled by the trains 
using the same tracks that carried 
the former synagogue’s members to 
their doom. 
And, in those moments, sud-
denly, the neighborhood was not 
forced to listen, not forced to hear 
the wailing of grief, not forced to 
bear witness. And I felt small again. 
Ignored again by the city of Berlin, 
which smothered our pleas once 
more, the same as it did on that 
same night in 1938.
The prayer went on like this for 
some time, with feelings inside me 
of powerfulness and powerlessness 
chasing each other like a game of 
cat and mouse. 
Feelings of how, after 84 years, 
we can make the city bear wit-
ness to our pain, and how the city 
ignores our pain still. It was pro-
found.

Isaac Vineburg lives in Farmington Hills.

Isaac and 
Lexie 
Vineburg 

Memorial at the 
wall of the JCC 
Berlin on the 84th 
anniversary of 
Kristallnacht

The reflection of 
a cantor 
singing at the 
84th anniversary 
of Kristallnacht 
in Berlin 

continued from page 27

