German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Thursday that he was “ashamed and outraged” by the wave of anti-Semitic incidents that have recently swept through Germany, warning on the 85th anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogrom that Berlin would not tolerate anti-Jewish displays, Reuters reported.

Scholz said this during the Kristallnacht commemoration ceremony, which took place in a synagogue in Berlin. The synagogue in question was one of approximately 1,000 Mosaic places of worship that were destroyed in Germany by the Nazis and their supporters in November 1938.

At least 91 Jews were killed in the pogrom, and 7,500 of their businesses were vandalized and looted in Germany. Nazi authorities also arrested 30,000 Jewish men and boys in an act that historians consider a precursor to the Holocaust.

The synagogue where Scholz gave his speech was recently attacked with Molotov cocktails following a surprise attack by Hamas on Israel and the Israeli retaliation that followed. Germany, like France and Britain, also countries with large Muslim minorities, has faced a wave of anti-Semitic incidents since last month.

The monitoring organization RIAS reported 202 anti-Semitic incidents in Germany alone in the week following the Hamas attack, a 240% increase from last year.

Olaf Scholz talks about the “poison” of anti-Semitism

“Every manifestation of anti-Semitism poisons our society,” Scholz, who wore a kippah, the traditional headdress worn by Jewish men in synagogue, said Thursday.

“We will not tolerate anti-Semitism,” he emphasized.

While the number of anti-Semitic incidents has increased dramatically in Europe and elsewhere in the world as a result of the conflict in the Middle East, the topic is even more acute in Germany, the country that killed 6 million Jews during the Holocaust.

A 10-minute video of Robert Habeck, Germany’s economy minister, expressing concern over the country’s recent wave of anti-Semitism went viral on social media last week.

In the recording, Habek warned that Germans could be sued for anti-Semitism and that people in the country without German citizenship risked obtaining residency status.

Chancellor Scholz recalled on Thursday that Germany’s new citizenship rules exclude anti-Semitic people.

He emphasized that teaching Germany’s historical responsibility for the Holocaust to the younger generation is all the more important because those who witnessed it are no longer alive to witness it.

Immigrants, a painful topic of Jew hatred in Germany

Scholz also noted that since Germany is now a major destination for immigrants, it is important to teach these lessons because some of those who arrive may not have learned about the Holocaust in their home countries or have received a different version of the historical truth.

“At the same time, we must not mislead those who now see an opportunity to deprive more than 5 million Muslim citizens of their place in our society. [germani]Olaf Scholz warned.

“Never again,” a phrase used after the Holocaust to warn against the dangers of anti-Semitism, also means friendship with Israel, the German chancellor said.

“Israel has the right to defend itself against the barbaric terror of Hamas,” he said, reiterating his government’s pledge to do everything in its power to help free hostages taken by the Palestinian terror group.

Before the Nazis came to power in 1933, Berlin was one of the world’s centers of Jewish culture, and some of Germany’s most prominent scholars of the time were Berlin Jews.

In 1933, there were about 160,000 Jews living in Berlin, but only 1,400 of them survived to the end of World War II in 1945. The rest emigrated or were killed in concentration camps.