Scheer, Regina (1993). Racial hatred and hysteria seemed to have taken complete hold of otherwise decent people. Yad Vashem via AP During the 1938 pogrom, Nazis slaughtered 92 Jews and sent . Why is the light so bright in the room". KFC issued an apology approximately an hour later, blaming the original message on an "error in our system". Wherever I have been I have been chased like an animal.. November 10, 1938. Look up each word in a print, digital, or online dictionary. Schools were ransacked, as the attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers. Kristallnacht (German pronunciation: [kstalnat] (listen)) or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (German: Novemberpogrome, pronounced [novm.b.poom] (listen)),[1][2] was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's Sturmabteilung (SA) paramilitary and Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilians throughout Nazi Germany on 910 November 1938. [citation needed], The avant-garde guitarist Gary Lucas's 1988 composition "Verklrte Kristallnacht", which juxtaposes what would become the Israeli national anthem ten years after Kristallnacht, "Hatikvah", with phrases from the German national anthem "Deutschland ber Alles" amid wild electronic shrieks and noise, is intended to be a sonic representation of the horrors of Kristallnacht. Night of Broken Glass 2. "[75] It discredited pro-Nazi movements in Europe and North America, leading to a sharp decline in their support. This was the first time Nazi officials made massive arrests of Jews specifically because they were Jews, without any further cause for arrest. Eric Lucas recalls the destruction of the synagogue that a tiny Jewish community had constructed in a small village only twelve years earlier: "It did not take long before the first heavy grey stones came tumbling down, and the children of the village amused themselves as they flung stones into the many colored windows. The regime moved eventually toward policies of forced emigration, and finally toward the realization of a Germany free of Jews (judenrein) by deportation of the Jewish population to the East.. [65], As it was aware that the German public did not support the Kristallnacht, the propaganda ministry directed the German press to portray opponents of racial persecution as disloyal. The background of the pogrom was signified by a sharp cleavage of interests between the different agencies of party and state. Synagoguesburned throughout the night. The legislation made further strides in removing Jews from public life. TTY: 202.488.0406. In two days and nights, more than 1,000 synagogues were burned or otherwise damaged. Herschel Grynszpan carried a revolver and thoughts of revenge with him as he walked through the streets of Paris . B. rousseau [85], Kristallnacht was the inspiration for the 1988 composition Mayn Yngele by the composer Frederic Rzewski, of which he says: "I began writing this piece in November 1988, on the 50th anniversary of the Kristallnacht My piece is a reflection on that vanished part of Jewish tradition which so strongly colors, by its absence, the culture of our time". Nearly 100 Jews were killed during Kristallnacht and 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration . Starting in the late hours of November 9 and continuing into the next day, Nazi mobs, SS troops and ordinary citizens torched or otherwise vandalized hundreds of synagogues throughout Germany and damaged, if not completely destroyed, thousands of Jewish homes, schools, businesses, hospitals and cemeteries. Fires were lit, and prayer books, scrolls, artwork and philosophy texts were thrown upon them, and precious buildings were either burned or smashed until unrecognizable. [14][15] From its inception, Hitler's regime moved quickly to introduce anti-Jewish policies. The immediate reaction by the Gestapo was to push the Polish Jews16,000 personsover the borderline, but this measure failed due to the stubbornness of the Polish customs officers. BERLIN (AP) Germans across the country on Saturday commemorated the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht the night of broken glass during . Through a series of interconnected stories, within which the same characters move in and out, the author weaves a tapestry of. Kristallnacht was a turning point in the beginning of the Nazi Holocaust. Two days earlier, Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old Polish Jewish student, shot and killed Ernst vom Rath, a member of the Nazi party. This wave of violence took place throughout Germany, annexed Austria, and in areas of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia recently occupied by German troops. destroyed hundreds of synagogues, desecrated Jewish cemeteries. Hitlers right hand man. IncidentallyI would not like to be a Jew in Germany.. 16)". The Nazi government imposed a collective fine of one billion Reichsmarks (about $400 million in 1938) on the Jewish community. Mass arrests. Corrections? However, prior to Kristallnacht, these Nazi policies had been primarily nonviolent. [77] 1 / 15. kristalnacht. Don't Let Him Come Back 7. Definition. But police arrested the victims and firefighters were ordered not to intervene. They were involved in the destruction on Kristallnacht. Chapter 13 Test Study Guide. One such administrator was Breckinridge Long, who was responsible for carrying out policies relating to immigration. World opinion thus turned sharply against the Nazi regime, with some politicians calling for war. "Silence and Outrage: Reassessing the Complex Christian Response to Kristallnacht in English-Speaking Canada. Among those expelled was the family of Sendel and Riva Grynszpan, Polish Jews who had emigrated to Germany in 1911 and settled in Hanover, Germany. Around the time of Kristallnacht, the SS newspaper Das Schwarze Korps called for a "destruction by swords and flames." How did leaders, diplomats, and citizens around the world respond to the events of the Holocaust? The Night of Broken Glass marked a turning point in theNazi war against the Jews. (The title is a reference to Arnold Schoenberg's 1899 work "Verklrte Nacht" that presaged his pioneering work on atonal music; Schoenberg was an Austrian Jew who would move to the United States to escape the Nazis). Walter, dressed in a Nazi uniform, arrived at Max's house and told him he had to leave immediately to escape arrest. All Wasted 10. Some lawmakers who hoped to change the countrys restrictive immigration quota laws saw an opportunity in the wave of sympathy among Americans for refugees after Kristallnacht. The "Night of Broken Glass" On the night of November 9-10, 1938, the Nazi regime coordinated a wave of antisemitic violence in Nazi Germany. 1 / 15. [64] During the events of Kristallnacht, several Gauleiter and deputy Gauleiters had refused orders to enact the Kristallnacht, and many leaders of the SA and of the Hitler Youth also openly refused party orders, while expressing disgust. I am not a dog. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister for public enlightenment and propaganda, immediately seized on the assassination to rile Hitlers supporters into an anti-Semitic frenzy. Tombstones were uprooted and graves violated. New York: Berg, 1991. It is widely assumed that the assassination was politically motivated, but historian Hans-Jrgen Dscher says the shooting may have been the result of a homosexual love affair gone wrong. The night of broken glass A Jewish refugee's assassination of a German official in Paris in 1938 sparked the German attack on Jews known as Kristallnacht Wed 9 Sep 2009 07.05 EDT Kristallnacht:. [59] There was however no personal comment or even acknowledgment from the German leader Adolf Hitler himself about Kristallnacht. Despite widespread support, the Wagner-Rogers Bill died in Congress. [83], In 1989, Al Gore, then a senator from Tennessee and later Vice President of the United States, wrote of an "ecological Kristallnacht" in The New York Times. A British newspaper told its readers that hundreds "are reported to be lying about, penniless and deserted, in little villages along the frontier near where they had been driven out by the Gestapo and left. At his press conference on November 15, 1938, one week after Kristallnacht, President Franklin D. Roosevelt denounced Nazi Germanys terror attack on Jews, saying, I myself could scarcely believe that such things could occur in a twentieth-century civilization. FDR made an exception to his practice of off-the-record press conferences by allowing newspapers to quote this statement from his meeting with reporters that day. The night of broken glass. Auf Nach Palstina!'" An estimated 400 Jews lost their lives in the anti-Semitic pogrom and more than 30,000 were imprisoned or sent to concentration camps, where many were brutally mistreated. "American opinion toward Jews during the Nazi era: Results from quota sample polling during the 1930s and 1940s. Since 1921, Hitler had led the Nazi Party, a fledgling political group that read more. Despite the increasing threat faced by Jews living under Nazi rule in Germany and Austria, President Roosevelt knew that he would not be able to persuade Congress to reconsider immigration regulations. The local fire departments confined themselves to prevent the flames from spreading to neighboring buildings. At the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961, Sendel Grynszpan recounted the events of their deportation from Hanover on the night of 27 October 1938: "Then they took us in police trucks, in prisoners' lorries, about 20 men in each truck, and they took us to the railway station. "He wanted it to be known that not all Germans supported Kristallnacht. Kristallnacht was a turning point in the history of the Third Reich, marking the shift . Many newspapers condemned Kristallnacht, with some of them comparing it to the murderous pogroms incited by Imperial Russia during the 1880s. The Nazi government barred Jews from schools on November 15 and authorized local authorities to impose curfews in late November. When the first rays of a cold and pale November sun penetrated the heavy dark clouds, the little synagogue was but a heap of stone, broken glass and smashed-up woodwork."[43]. info)), or the Rhm purge (German: Rhm-Putsch), also called Operation Hummingbird (German: Unternehmen Kolibri), was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934. Police were instructed not to interfere with the riots unless the guidelines were violated. Using the pretext of the assassination of a German diplomat in Paris, Goebbels urged Storm Troopers . READ MORE: Holocaust Photos Reveal Horrors of Nazi Concentration Camps. The name refers to the wave of violent anti-Jewish pogromswhich took place on November 9 and 10, 1938. That ended in the most vicious and heinous manner, 75 years ago Saturday, in what became known as Kristallnacht "The Night of Broken Glass." The broken glass was from Jewish homes and . [72] A Protestant parson spoke out in 1943 and was sent to Dachau concentration camp where he died after a few days. November 9th 1938. . German censors sought to block images of Kristallnacht from reaching newspapers in the United States. They described the actions as justifiable and spontaneous responses of the German population to the assassination of a German diplomatic official, Ernst vom Rath, in Paris. As the number of Jews and Romani wanting to leave increased, the restrictions against them grew, with many countries tightening their rules for admission. Furthermore, it became illegal for Aryans and Jews to marry or have extramarital intercourse. Over 1,000 synagogues, some 3 centuries old, were burned and over 7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed or damaged. [5] The Times of London observed on 11 November 1938: "No foreign propagandist bent upon blackening Germany before the world could outdo the tale of burnings and beatings, of blackguardly assaults on defenceless and innocent people, which disgraced that country yesterday. Shrill screams shattered. [68], In view of this being a totalitarian state a surprising characteristic of the situation here is the intensity and scope among German citizens of condemnation of the recent happenings against Jews. These laws resulted in the exclusion and alienation of Jews from German social and political life. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. New York 1 multimedia journalist Colleen Hagerty reported in this story about the program: NY1: Wagner College remembers Kristallnacht Watch on
