A dwindling number of Holocaust survivors will on Sunday mark the 87th anniversary of Kristallnacht, at a time when antisemitism is on the rise, especially in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.

Walter Bingham, 101, George Shefi, 94, and Paul Alexander, 87, gathered at the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem this week to share their memories ahead of the anniversary, determined to tell their stories of that violent night.

Nazis plundered towns and cities in Germany and Austria on 9-10 November in 1938, a night which became known as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass.

They killed at least 91 people, vandalized 7,500 Jewish businesses and set fire to more than1,400 synagogues in Germany, according to Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

Up to 30,000 Jewish men were arrested, many taken to concentration camps such as Dachau or Buchenwald.

Hundreds more died from mistreatment or killed themselves in the camps, years before official mass deportations began.

Bingham was 14 years old when he turned up for school at the synagogue, only to find the building had been attacked during Kristallnacht and set on fire.

The riots were a stark turning point in the escalating persecution that led to the killing of 6 million European Jews by the Nazis and their supporters during the Holocaust.

A few months later, Bingham was put on a Kindertransport from Germany to England — among the nearly 10,000 children in Nazi-occupied Europe brought to safety by the 1938-1939 British rescue mission.

His father had already been deported to Poland, where he would die in the Warsaw Ghetto, and he never saw his mother again.

Shefi has been sharing his experience of antisemitism in schools in Germany and elsewhere, telling students of being a young Jewish boy in Berlin and the chaos of Kristallnacht.

He traveled to England alone on a Kindertransport soon afterward the riots.

Shefi, who was living with his mother after his parents divorced, never saw her again; she perished in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Alexander was less than a year old during Kristallnacht.

Weeks later his parents sent him on a Kindertransport to England, where he spent several years in a children’s home before being reunited with his parents in September 1942 — one of the few children who were.

There are approximately 200,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors left, but 70% are expected to pass away in the next decade.

That makes their testimony even more important, to pass on lessons about recognizing and taking action against antisemitism, the survivors say.

Antisemitic attacks have increased dramatically since the war in Gaza began, though the numbers declined slightly last year from a peak immediately after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack against Israel.

That is according to an annual report about global antisemitism from Tel Aviv University released earlier this year.

Bingham says he feels like he’s living through the events of 1930s Germany again — but there is a difference.

“In those days, the Jewish mentality was apologetic," he explains. “Please don’t do anything to me, I won’t do anything to you.”

“Today, we have, thank God, the state of Israel, a very strong state," he adds.

"And whereas antisemitism is still on the increase, the one thing that will not happen would be a Holocaust, because the state will see to it” that doesn't happen, Bingham concludes.

Alexander emphasizes the events of Kristallnacht and October 7 must never happen again.

"It's important for us to do it and to do everything in our power to ensure that there will be no repeat," he stresses.

AP Video by Moshe Edri