Dozens of Rabbis from all over Europe who were attending a conference for the Rabbinical Center of Europe in Potsdam Germany, were forced to leave their hotel on Tuesday morning just after 6:00 a.m.

The Rabbis were woken up by police in their hotel rooms in the Mercure Hotel where they were staying and told that they needed to evacuate immediately. The police told them that security forces had just discovered a large bomb from WWII near the hotel and that sappers were coming at that time to neutralize the device.

According to German media, some 10,000 people were evacuated from their homes in the adjacent area and were brought behind protective barriers a half-mile away from the location of the bomb. The central bus station was also evacuated as were schools, old-age homes, all of the government offices in the area. The bomb was discovered buried approximately 13 feet in the earth under the central bus station.

Vice President of the Rabbinical Center of Europe, Rabbi Aryeh Goldberg told BeChadrei Charedim that: “The police told us that we could go to a local synagogue nearby that was outside of their perimeter to wait out the operation and that is what we did. Rabbi Eliezer Gur Aryeh from Krakow gave a shiur in Chassidus while we waited out the incident. Our schedule was a bit changed, but otherwise, we expect things to return to normal in the next few hours.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)