Meg Wiviott is the author of the award winning picture book BENNO AND THE NIGHT OF BROKEN GLASS, which tells the story of Kristallnacht through the eyes of a cat. "use strict";(function(){var insertion=document.getElementById("citation-access-date");var date=new Date().toLocaleDateString(undefined,{month:"long",day:"numeric",year:"numeric"});insertion.parentElement.replaceChild(document.createTextNode(date),insertion)})(); FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. Heinrich Himmler wrote, "I suppose that it is Goebbels's megalomaniaand stupidity which is responsible for starting this operation now, in a particularly difficult diplomatic situation. [33] One of the first legal measures issued was an order by Heinrich Himmler, commander of all German police, forbidding Jews to possess any weapons whatsoever and imposing a penalty of twenty years' confinement in a concentration camp upon every Jew found in possession of a weapon hereafter. This was the first time Nazi officials made massive arrests of Jews specifically because they were Jews, without any further cause for arrest. "[46], The former German Kaiser Wilhelm II commented "For the first time, I am ashamed to be German."[47]. Two days earlier, Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old Polish Jewish student, shot and killed Ernst vom Rath, a member of the Nazi party. olice arrested the victims and firefighters were ordered not to intervene. The Night of the Broken Glass The Holocaust has played a significant part of many people lives living in Germany. The name Kristallnacht comes from the sight of glass on the streets from the windows of synagogues, Jewish-owned businesses and homes being broken. [14][15] From its inception, Hitler's regime moved quickly to introduce anti-Jewish policies. https://www.britannica.com/event/Kristallnacht, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Holocaust Encyclopedia - Kristallnacht, Kristallnacht - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). November 1938: From "Reichskristallnacht" To Genocide. The Daily Telegraph correspondent, Hugh Greene, wrote of events in Berlin: "Mob law ruled in Berlin throughout the afternoon and evening and hordes of hooligans indulged in an orgy of destruction. [17] The subsequent 1935 Nuremberg Laws stripped German Jews of their citizenship and prohibited Jews from marrying non-Jewish Germans. BERLIN (AP) Germans across the country on Saturday commemorated the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht the night of broken glass during . The official figure for Jewish deaths, released by German officials in the aftermath of Kristallnacht, was 91, but recent scholarship suggests that there were hundreds of deaths, especially if one counts those who died of their injuries in the days and weeks that followed the pogrom. [32], The next day, the German government retaliated, barring Jewish children from German state elementary schools, indefinitely suspending Jewish cultural activities, and putting a halt to the publication of Jewish newspapers and magazines, including the three national German Jewish newspapers. Jewish cemeteries became a particular object of desecration in many regions. Georg Landauer to Martin Rosenbluth, 8 February 1938, cited in Friedlnder, loc. After intense discussions, Hitler left the assembly abruptly without giving his usual address. NIGHT OF BROKEN GLASS - The Washington Post By Patricia Brennan November 6, 1988 The night of Nov. 9, 1938, was cold in Germany and Austria, and so was the message Adolf Hitler sent to Jews. Following the violence, police departments recorded a large number of suicides and rapes. The United States recalled its ambassador (but it did not break off diplomatic relations) while other governments severed diplomatic relations with Germany in protest. This unprecedented violence against the Reichs Jews generated international outrage. [79], Kristallnacht changed the nature of Nazi Germany's persecution of the Jews from economic, political, and social exclusion to physical violence, including beatings, incarceration, and murder; the event is often referred to as the beginning of the Holocaust. The trials were conducted exclusively by German and Austrian courts; the Allied occupation authorities did not have jurisdiction since none of the victims were Allied nationals. "[16], Kristallnacht was also instrumental in changing global public opinion. In the fall of 1938, the increased pressure on Jewish property nourished the party's ambition, especially since Hjalmar Schacht had been ousted as Reich minister for economics. Mass arrests. Goebbels needed a chance to improve his standing in the eyes of Hitler. News of Raths death on November 9 reached Adolf Hitler in Munich, Germany, where he was celebrating the anniversary of the abortive 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. [22], The Zionist leadership in the British Mandate of Palestine wrote in February 1938 that according to "a very reliable private sourceone which can be traced back to the highest echelons of the SS leadership", there was "an intention to carry out a genuine and dramatic pogrom in Germany on a large scale in the near future". On the night of November 9-10, 1938, Nazis attacked Jewish persons and property throughout Germany and Austria. The legislation made further strides in removing Jews from public life. Businesses have normal opening hours. Treat yourself with more tender cheese on your crispy chicken." PBS: American Experience.Kristallnacht: 1938. Night of Broken Glass, Nov 9 1938 night when the Nazis killed or injured many jews and destroyed many jewish propertys. The pretext for the attacks was the assassination of the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath[4] by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old German-born Polish Jew living in Paris. The night of broken glass. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. This event came to be called Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) because of the shattered glass that littered the streets after the vandalism and destruction of Jewish-owned businesses, synagogues, and homes. Many of the destroyed remains of Jewish property plundered during Kristallnacht were dumped near Brandenburg. Sir Kristian Goldmund Aumann. The Night of Broken Glass marked a turning point in the, zi war against the Jews. I must protest so that the whole world hears my protest, and that I will do." Grynszpan and vom Rath had become intimate after they met in Le Boeuf sur le Toit, which was a popular meeting place for gay men at the time. [caption=13f42eac-82e8-4dfb-8563-0b6af0ef8d9b] - [credit=13f42eac-82e8-4dfb-8563-0b6af0ef8d9b]. Though cleansing campaigns for ethnic or religious read more, From November 8 to November 9, 1923, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and his followers staged the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, a failed takeover of the government in Bavaria, a state in southern Germany. The president also announced that he had recalled the US ambassador to Germany, Hugh Wilson. McCullough, Colin, and Nathan Wilson, eds. antique, Identify the word that is not related in meaning to the other words in the set. Get started for FREE Continue. The German government made an immediate pronouncement that the Jews themselves were to blame for the pogrom and imposed a fine of one billion Reichsmark (some 400 million US dollars at 1938 rates) on the German Jewish community. Some Jewish women were sent to local jails. We would like to thank Crown Family Philanthropies and the Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation for supporting the ongoing work to create content and resources for the Holocaust Encyclopedia. Learn about Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), November 910, 1938 propaganda. John Lund, Paul S. Vickery, P. Scott Corbett, Todd Pfannestiel, Volker Janssen, Eric Hinderaker, James A. Henretta, Rebecca Edwards, Robert O. Self, By the People: A History of the United States, AP Edition. This unprecedented violence against the Reichs Jews generated international outrage. "[75] It discredited pro-Nazi movements in Europe and North America, leading to a sharp decline in their support. After Kristallnacht, Lindbergh declined to return the medal. But police arrested the victims and firefighters were ordered not to intervene. WATCH VIDEO: Henryk Ross: Photos from a Nazi Ghetto. Nazi propaganda alienated 500,000 Jews in Germany, who accounted for only 0.86% of the overall population, and framed them as an enemy responsible for Germany's defeat in the First World War and for its subsequent economic disasters, such as the 1920s hyperinflation and subsequent Great Depression. Kristallnacht. [18] Many sought asylum abroad; hundreds of thousands emigrated, but as Chaim Weizmann wrote in 1936, "The world seemed to be divided into two partsthose places where the Jews could not live and those where they could not enter. The broken glass in the streets prompted the name "Kristallnacht," or Crystal Night. 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. "[29] He received the postcard on 3 November 1938. German Jews had been subjected to repressive policies since 1933, when Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany. The Nazi regime expanded and radicalized measures aimed at removing Jews entirely from German economic and social life in the forthcoming years. Mobs of SA men roamed the streets, attacking Jews in their houses and forcing Jews they encountered to perform acts of public humiliation. This wave of violence took place throughout Germany, annexed Austria, and in areas of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia recently occupied by German troops. The Day the Holocaust Began: The Odyssey of Herschel Grynszpan. Rioters ransacked and looted about 7,500 Jewish businesses, killed at least 91 Jews, and vandalized Jewish hospitals, homes, schools, and cemeteries. Police were also instructed to seize Jewish archives from synagogues and community offices, and to arrest and detain "healthy male Jews, who are not too old", for eventual transfer to (labor) concentration camps. But another event Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass" on Nov. 9-10, 1938, which preceded the ghettos, deportations and gas chambers, is still seared into the collective Jewish . Kristallnacht owes its name to the shards of shattered glass that lined German streets in the wake of the pogrombroken glass from the windows of synagogues, homes, and Jewish-owned businesses plundered and destroyed during the violence. paulyu. "Our Jewish Brethren: Christian Responses to Kristallnacht in Canadian Mass Media.". [76], After the Kristallnacht, Salvador Allende, Gabriel Gonzlez Videla, Marmaduke Grove, Florencio Durn and other members of the Congress of Chile sent a telegram to Adolf Hitler denouncing the persecution of Jews. "[58], The extent of the damage done on Kristallnacht was so great that many Germans are said to have expressed their disapproval of it, and to have described it as senseless. The British government approved the Kindertransport program for refugee children. This nationwide riot became known as Kristallnacht or the "Night of Broken Glass." The name "Kristallnacht" is a reference to the shattered glass from store windows that littered the streets during and after the riot. [39] The SA and Hitler Youth shattered the windows of about 7,500 Jewish stores and businesses, hence the name Kristallnacht (Crystal Night), and looted their goods. While the Nazi party was interested in improving its financial strength on the regional and local level by taking over Jewish property, Hermann Gring, in charge of the Four-Year Plan, hoped to acquire access to foreign currency in order to pay for the import of urgently-needed raw material. Prior to the horrific "Night of Broken Glass" Jews ' material comforts and mental health declined due to the early Nazi anti-Jew moves in 1933. The Unmaking of Adolf Hitler. One such administrator was Breckinridge Long, who was responsible for carrying out policies relating to immigration. Feeling Blank Again 5. Additionally, more than 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to the Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen concentration camps in Germanycamps that were specifically constructed to hold Jews, homosexuals, political prisoners and other perceived enemies of the Nazi state. Poland stated that it would renounce citizenship rights of Polish Jews living abroad for at least five years after the end of October, effectively making them stateless. The Night of Broken Glass marked a turning point in theNazi war against the Jews. Another Person 3. Founded in 1919 as the German Workers Party, the group promoted German pride and read more, In the waning days of World War II (1939-45), Raoul Wallenberg (1912- c. 1947), a Swedish businessman-turned-diplomat based in Budapest, was responsible for the rescue of thousandssome estimates are as high as 100,000of Hungarian Jews from extermination by the Nazis. [50][51][52], The number of emigrating Jews surged, as those who were able to left the country. Night of Broken Glass 2. After Kristallnacht, conditions for German Jews grew increasingly worse. Over 1,000 synagogues, some 3 centuries old, were burned and over 7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed or damaged. Of the interviewed party-members 63% expressed extreme indignation against it, while only 5% expressed approval of racial persecution, the rest being noncommittal. On November 15, 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, responded to Kristallnacht by reading a statement to the media in which he harshly denounced the rising tide of anti-Semitism and violence in Germany. "Silence and Outrage: Reassessing the Complex Christian Response to Kristallnacht in English-Speaking Canada. Description November 9th 1938 is widely seen as a violent turning point in Nazi Germany's assault on the Jews. Despite the outward appearance of spontaneous violence, and the local cast which the pogrom took on in various regions throughout the Reich, the central orders Heydrich relayed gave specific instructions: the "spontaneous" rioters were to take no measures endangering non-Jewish German life or property; they were not to subject foreigners (even Jewish foreigners) to violence; and they were to remove all synagogue archives prior to vandalizing synagogues and other properties of the Jewish communities, and to transfer that archival material to the Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst, or SD). Eighty years ago this weekend - on November 9-10, 1938 - a wave of anti-Jewish pogroms engulfed Germany, Austria and the areas of . As the Jews were taken away, their remaining possessions were seized as loot both by Nazi authorities and by neighbors. The Night of Broken Glass marked a turning point in the Na zi war against the Jews. 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