Berlin (CNN) German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned a "worrying" resurgence of anti-Semitism in Germany, including a rise in violence attacks, and appealed for a defense of liberal democratic values and institutions.

She made the comments in a memorial speech marking 80 years since Kristallnacht or the "Night of Broken Glass," the 1938 rampage of state-sponsored violence by the Nazi regime against Jewish communities, which caused widespread looting and destruction of Jewish properties across Germany and Austria.

Merkel spoke at Berlin's Rykestrasse Synagogue, one of the 1,400 synagogues that were set ablaze that night.

Jewish shops and businesses were destroyed by the Nazis during Kristallnacht.

"There are two urgent questions that we need to answer," she said. "First, what did we really learn from the Shoah, this rupture of civilization? And second to the first question: Are our democratic institutions sufficiently strong so that an increase of anti-Semitism, or even if a majority presents anti-Semitism, it can be prevented in the future?"

She said that Kristallnacht had "paved the way to the Holocaust," which she described as the "the greatest rupture of civilization." But she also said that "the terror of Nazism did not happen overnight but grew gradually," warning that the German public's general acceptance of anti-Semitism is what allowed the Nazi regime to carry out the Holocaust.

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