© Chris Meisch / RTL
Luxembourg has inaugurated new memorial walls at the Kaddish Monument, engraved with the names of 1,225 Jewish victims of Nazism, in a ceremony honouring their memory and calling for vigilance against hatred today.
During the Second World War, more than 1,200 Jewish residents of Luxembourg were persecuted, deported and murdered by the Nazis, an atrocity that almost entirely destroyed the country's Jewish community and left lasting scars.
On Sunday morning, a solemn ceremony was held in Luxembourg City to inaugurate the memorial walls inscribed with the names of the 1,225 victims. The walls stand alongside the Kaddish Monument on Boulevard Roosevelt.
The project was initiated by the association MemoShoah, with the support of the Luxembourg Government, the City of Luxembourg, the Jewish Consistory of Luxembourg, and the Luxembourg Foundation for the Remembrance of the Shoah. Its purpose is to honour the victims, keep alive the memory of Nazi crimes, and send a clear message for the future.
The inauguration included prayers, a minute of silence, and the reading of witness biographies. For Georges Santer, president of MemoShoah, the walls provide a form of symbolic presence for those who have no graves: he underlined that inscribing the names gives them a place in both family memory and collective national remembrance.
Claude Marx, honorary president of MemoShoah and initiator of the project, stressed that remembering the Jewish victims of Nazism is not only about acknowledging the past but also about safeguarding human rights, freedom, and peaceful coexistence today. He warned that memory fades with time, and insisted that recalling the Shoah is essential to resist and denounce racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and all forms of hatred.
Music also played a central role. Nur Ben-Shalom, artistic director of the project Lebensmelodien, performed with his clarinet songs written either by Jewish victims or during the Nazi era. He explained that while these pieces once gave hope in the darkest times, today they serve to preserve memory and, above all, to bring people together through the shared language of humanity.
As part of the commemoration, MemoShoah also published a memorial book with the names and 18 biographies of Luxembourg's Jewish victims. From Monday until 3 October, copies will be available for the public at Villa Pauly.
