Toby Axelrod writes in The Jewish Chronicle about 1989, the year when Jews returned to Germany – except they came from Russia.
… Irene Runge grew up in East Berlin, daughter of American ex-pat socialists. She remembers the Jewish community as deadly quiet before the Wall came down.
“There were only funerals,” she recalls.
But during a book promotion trip to New York in March 1989, Ms Runge was introduced to ”the Rebbe” — Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson — “and he told me the Berlin Wall will collapse.
“I thought, how would he know, sitting there in Brooklyn? Ms Runge had started cultural and social clubs for Jews in East Berlin, and the Rebbe told her to keep on with her work.
“Of course — he was wise, and he understood that the Russian Jews would be coming.”
Sure enough, “all of a sudden they have to build kindergartens and schools and have barmitzvahs. Without the Russians, there would be no Jews in Germany.”
boruch hashem