Jewish community announces demo before Waters concert in Frankfurt Festhalle

The Jewish community in Frankfurt wants to demonstrate together with a broad civil society alliance against the concert by the musician Roger Waters in the Frankfurt Festhalle on Sunday.

The protest rally is planned a few hours before the concert on the square in front of the Festhalle and is themed “Frankfurt unites against anti-Semitism,” as the Jewish community announced on Thursday.

It is about a strong sign against Jew hatred. “We don’t want to stand idly by when a well-known anti-Semite and conspiracy theorist is literally given a stage in Frankfurt.”

In addition, it was considered a degradation of the victims of the Shoah when “such a hate preacher appeared” at the historic site of the Frankfurt Festhalle, where around 2,700 Jews were rounded up, harassed and then deported during the November pogroms of 1938.

The Protestant and Catholic Churches in Frankfurt also participate in the alliance, which has around 50 members. From 4 p.m. on Sunday, a memorial ceremony will take place on the square in front of the festival hall, in which the names of the Jews deported from the festival hall will be read out. The Waters concert is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m.

There had been a legal dispute about the concert by the co-founder of the band “Pink Floyd”, who had already performed in Munich and Berlin in May. The city of Frankfurt and the state of Hesse wanted to cancel the concert, the Frankfurt administrative court allowed the performance.

The court stated that Waters “obviously uses symbolism based on the Nazi regime” in his show. It is crucial that his overall appearance does not allow the conclusion that the musician glorifies or relativizes Nazi atrocities.

Mirjam Schmidt, spokeswoman for art and culture for the Greens parliamentary group in the Hessian state parliament, said on Thursday that the administrative court had referred to artistic freedom, which is a valuable asset. “Nevertheless, or precisely because of this, we are all called upon to protest against the performance in a loud voice.” (KNA)