Kristallnacht
KristallnachtYad Vashem

Kristallnacht, also referred to as the November Pogrom or the Night of Broken Glass, was a series of violent antisemitic attacks which took place across Germany on the 9 – 10 November 1938. The name refers to the broken glass lining the streets after the pogroms.

Antisemitic laws and decrees had been increasing from the time that the Nazis rose to power, with over 400 passed between 1933 and 1938. Kristallnacht marked a dramatic escalation in the Nazi’s treatment of Jews.

Kristallnacht started in response to the murder of Ernst vom Rath, a German official in Paris.

Vom Rath was shot by Herschel Grynszpan, a seventeen-year-old Jewish teenager, on the 7 November 1938. The German press widely reported on the attack and vom Rath’s injuries.

Grynszpan stated that he shot vom Rath to bring the world’s attention to the plight of his family and other Jews affected during the Polenaktion .

The Polenaktion was the forced movement of thousands of Jews in October 1938 by the SS and German police, Jews who had been born in Poland but were living in Germany, now sent back to Poland.

When the Polish Jews arrived in Poland, Polish guards sent them back to Germany, and they were then stuck between the two borders without food or shelter in difficult conditions. One of the families involved was the Grynszpan family, whose son Herschel lived in Paris.

On the 9th of November, vom Rath died of his injuries.

That evening, as the Nazi Party leadership met in a Beer Hall to observe the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch, Joseph Goebbels gave a speech. He ordered that all Jewish businesses and synagogues should be destroyed in response to vom Rath’s death. The police were told to stay away and not interfere with the attacks.

Goebbels later wrote in his diary on the 10 November 1938:

"I go to the party reception in the Old Town Hall. A gigantic event. I describe the situation to the Führer. He decides: let the demonstrations continue. Withdraw the police. For once the Jews should feel the rage of the people…. I issue corresponding instructions to the police and the party. Then I speak briefly to the officials of the party. A storm of applause. They all rush to the telephones. Now the people shall act!"

Violence spread across the nation in almost every city and town. Whilst the attacks were led by the SA, citizens, and specifically young people, joined in to aggressively attack and cruelly humiliate Jewish women, men and children: in their homes, in their businesses, and on the streets.

Over 7,500 businesses had their windows smashed by the SA and Hitler Youth. Over 1,200 synagogues were desecrated, looted and burned and at least 90 people were killed.

One may ask, how could the entire world stand by and allow such a disaster to occur to innocent, loyal people? The fascist or authoritative regimes in Italy, Rumania, Hungary and Poland were governments who approved of this pogrom and wanted to use the pogrom as a case to make their own anti-Semitic policies stronger in their individual countries.

The three Great Western powers – Great Britain, France and the United States – said the appropriate things but did nothing to save the Jews.

Hitler, in the late 1930’s told the world to take the Jews but there was just no one willing to take them in. In the USA, President Roosevelt and his administration kept on expressing their shock over the terrible events which were occurring in Germany and Austria, but when it came time to act and help save the refugees by bringing them to the United States, the United States government refused and replied by saying that they have no intention to allow more immigrants to enter.

Kristallnacht teaches we must remain vigilant and not permit even the smallest seed of antisemitism to take root. Now that antisemitism has fully blossomed, the West must uproot the poisonous plant and destroy its seeds.