9th November, the International Day Against Fascism and Anti-Semitism

Published on November 8, 2012

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On 9th November, the International Day Against Fascism and Anti-Semitism is celebrated.

This date marks the pogrom of Kristallnacht: in the night between 9th à 10th November 1938, the Jewish community of Germany and Austria has been attacked by Nazis who burned synagogues and destroyed almost every Jewish shops. This event is usually considered as the symbolic beginning of the Holocaust.

Hope, not fear !

To commemorate this day, the team of 'At home in Europe' invites you to discover a film awarded in October by the European Commission: 'The Convoy '

Alexandra and Florian, 'Erasmus' exchange students, are off on a road movie across Europe to learn about discrimination as practised in our societies.They draw inspiration from reading the personal diary kept by a 27-year-old Jewish woman in Amsterdam, Etty Hillesum, between 1941 and 1943. Etty testifies to an unflagging faith in human beings at a time when they were perpetrating their blackest deeds: "I know everything," she writes. "and yet life is beautiful to me and full of meaning. At every moment."Through the people they meet along the way, in Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin and Auschwitz, the young reporters become aware of the forces at work in the past and to which we must consciously pay heed, so as not to yield to fear and hatred.