Yevgeni Wasserman, a German Jewish citizen serving as a policeman in Germany related that he is hiding his Jewish identity at present due to the worrying increase in anti-Semitism in Europe and in particular in Germany.

Yevgeni Wasserman says that his family originated in Germany, but was banished from the country and moved to Poland. There the family also experienced anti-Semitism and his great-grandfather tried unsuccessfully to get a ticket on the Titanic to immigrate to the US. Fortunately the ticket did not materialize but eventually the family accepted an offer from the USSR and moved to Uzbekistan where his grandfather built huge dams and the family lived peacefully for a long period.

All this however changed when the Soviet republic disintegrated. Uzbekistan became a sovereign state and most residents reverted to Islam. The country felt the influence of the war in neighboring Afghanistan as Muslim refugees streamed there. Jews felt less welcome in the new situation and the Wassermans, fearing pogroms, chose to return to…Germany.

Wasserman says that the 100,000-strong Jewish community in Germany is close-knit and when something happens, people may know the victims or the place personally. He says that he grew up in Dessau, near Halle where there was an attack on Yom Kippur 2019 at the local synagogue, and knows lots of local people, including those who were in the synagogue.