Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged to protect Germany’s Jews against a “shameful” upsurge in anti-Semitism in the wake of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, on the anniversary of the Nazi Kristallnacht pogrom that began the Holocaust, AFP reports.

Speaking in a Berlin synagogue that assailants targeted with two Molotov cocktails last month, Scholz said: “Essentially this is about keeping the promise given again and again in the decades since 1945 … the promise ‘never again’.”

The chancellor said “never again” meant keeping the memory of Nazi atrocities alive, rejecting “terror propaganda” and ensuring that citizens and migrants alike respect Germany’s “free democratic order which demands and guarantees diversity and respect”.

Scholz said rising anti-Jewish sentiment in Germany, given the weight of its historical crimes, was “shameful” for the country.