
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 18, 1990                   TAG: 9003182257
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: EAST BERLIN                                 LENGTH: Short

JEWS FEAR RENEWAL OF BIGOTRY

On the eve of East Germany's first free elections, many members of the country's small Jewish community worried Saturday that the social upheaval of recent months will revive anti-Semitism.

"The situation could become dangerous," said Nazi death camp survivor Oljean Ingster, the 62-year-old cantor of the 200-member Jewish community in East Berlin.

"With growing unemployment, we would expect attacks against foreigners and Jews," said Ingster, speaking after Sabbath prayers in the Rykestrasse Synagogue in East Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg district.

Other congregation members said the pace toward a united Germany was much too fast.

"We don't know very much about the West, and we have an uneasy feeling. German unity will only create chaos," said Gertrud Adam, a slight woman in her 40s. She said she considered East Germany her home and didn't want the country to be forced into unconditional surrender to West Germany.

Ingster and others said that while they welcomed the new political freedom, they were worried by the growing nationalistic sentiments and the emergence of right-wing extremist groups. In several recent pro-democracy marches, roving bands of neo-Nazi skinheads have attacked leftist demonstrators.

Ingster said that under Communist leadership, he had encountered only isolated incidents of anti-Semitism.

by CNB