"Kristallnacht came...and everything was changed."

by Michelle . · 2008-11-09 17:51:00 UTC
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Today marks the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, or the "Night of Broken Glass," a massive pogrom against the Jewish population of Germany and annexed territories in 1938.   (Thanks to Martha for passing along the link to this photo essay.) The pogrom saw the first mass arrest of Jews in Nazi Germany--over 30,000 were rounded up and sent to concentration camps--and marked a significant turning point towards mass violence against Jews. For this reason, it is often seen as the symbolic start of the Holocaust.

The wave of violence was far from "spontaneous," as the Nazi government claims. Rioters killed 92 Jews, destroyed 267 synagogues, smashed and looted 7,500 Jewish-owned businesses, and desecrated countless Jewish cemeteries. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,

"The pogrom proved especially destructive in Berlin and Vienna, home to the two largest Jewish communities in the German Reich. Mobs of SA men roamed the streets, attacking Jews in their houses and forcing Jews they encountered to perform acts of public humiliation. Although murder did not figure in the central directives, Kristallnacht claimed the lives of at least 91 Jews between 9 and 10 November. Police records of the period document a high number of rapes and of suicides in the aftermath of the violence."

The response of the German population was notably passive. The response of the world, then and ever since, has been astonishingly unsatisfactory.

[Quote in title from historian Max Rein. Photo: A burning synagogue.]

Michelle . has been involved in various activist endeavors, including the Teach Against Genocide pilot campaigns.
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