Singing in the dark

Oliver Robertson reports on the recent ‘Sanctuary Everywhere’ conference

by Oliver Robertson 5th January 2018

How did Jews in Germany go from being deeply integrated into society in 1918, even serving in the German army in the first world war, to the pogrom of Kristallnacht twenty years later? This is a question that Marigold Bentley, from Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW), has asked herself – and others – many times. One answer, she told the ‘Sanctuary Everywhere’ conference in Brussels in December, came from a Holocaust survivor, who thought there were two factors: firstly, poverty and austerity; and, secondly, propaganda.