Kristallnacht

Seventy years ago, on the night of November 9/10, 1938, the Nazi Party in Germany finally removed the veil of civilized behavior from its pathological hatred of the Jews, and lashed out in a nightmare of violence and savagery.




It became known, and is remembered, as 'Kristallnacht' - 'Crystal Night' or 'The Night Of Broken Glass' - after the thousands upon thousands of windows in Jewish homes and businesses shattered by Nazi thugs as they rampaged through the streets.




On that night, 92 Jews were murdered, and between 25,000 and 30,000 were seized without charge or trial. Some of those arrested are shown below, in the Buchenwald concentration camp.




Very few of them were to survive the Holocaust.

One survivor, a child at the time, recalls:

The thunderous banging on the front door shattered the quiet of our apartment in a Berlin suburb.

I swallowed the last bite of the chocolate cake my mother had just made for tea and followed her to the door. Two shabbily dressed men pushed past us, brusquely announced 'Gestapo' and stormed into the hall.

Gestapo. I'd never heard that word before. After all, I was only 11 years old. Until then I had been safe, protected, loved and adored by my parents.

Now, though, for the first time in my life, I was afraid. The Gestapo men were searching the apartment, flinging open all the doors, all the cupboards, shouting at my mother: 'Where is your husband? Where is he?'

As far as I knew, my father - tall, dark, handsome, gravely wounded in World War I, with a hole in his back and his foot from a shell, and his thumb severed, a brave yet gentle man who loved to recite poetry and write songs with me - was at work, at his dress factory, where he employed 40 seamstresses.

The Gestapo officers - one tall, pale and thin, the other short and fat, both wearing hats - screamed at my mother again. 'We've come to take him away! Where is he?'

My mother held her ground. 'How dare you! My husband is a hero of World War I. He was awarded the Iron Cross First Class. And we are Germans and proud of it.'

I was afraid and confused. I knew my mother was proud to be German. After all, her family, the Schilds, could trace their lineage back to 17thcentury Westphalia, and my father's family included the Hirschfelds, who owned five elite department stores.

At the same time, my mother also always said that she was proud to be Jewish. Yet we always celebrated Christmas, had a Christmas tree and at Easter coloured eggs.

I never really knew what being Jewish meant except that once a year we went to a beautiful place called a synagogue where part of the time everyone sang songs in a language I didn't understand.

The Gestapo were now in Mother's salon with its gold furniture and pink carpets, going through the drawers. One of them pocketed some of our silver cutlery. My mother protested, but they ignored her.

So she watched glowering as they moved on to her bedroom and searched under the black ebony bed for my father.

Finally, they gave up, snarling at my mother 'We'll be back for him', then left.

Although I didn't know it at the time, as they slammed the door behind them, they were also slamming the door on my youth, my innocence, my family happiness and, ultimately, my father's life.'

Thousands of Jewish-owned buildings - synagogues, schools, libraries, businesses and homes - were ransacked. Many were set ablaze.






This Sunday, Germany has been remembering Kristallnacht.

Germany has marked the 70th anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogrom, a prelude to the Holocaust, with solemn ceremonies throughout the country and celebrations of the rebirth of Jewish life in Berlin.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and Jewish leaders gathered at Germany's biggest synagogue on Sunday to pay tribute to the victims of Kristallnacht on November 9-10, 1938 and to the revival of a Jewish community against all odds.

The leader of the Central Council of Jews, Charlotte Knobloch, said she hoped a reminder of the atrocities would rekindle Germans' commitment to tolerance in the face of a resurgent far-right.

"It is our responsibility to keep the memories alive," Knobloch, who witnessed Kristallnacht as a six-year-old in the southern city of Munich, told the congregation of about 1,200 people at Berlin's Rykestrasse synagogue.

"Six million children, women and men must never be degraded to a footnote of history," she said, referring to those slaughtered in the Nazis' bid to wipe out European Jewry.

Official commemorations weren't the only tribute. As the BBC reports:

On Sunday evening, a concert entitled "Tu Was", or "Do Something", was held at Berlin's Tempelhof airport.

Its organiser, British violinist Daniel Hope, said he was inspired by reading a book about the events in 1938 and realising there was nothing to mark the day other than the official ceremony.

"It's difficult to know how to commemorate a day of tragedy," he said.

"It is a wonderful chance for everybody to think about things. Not doing something is the worst thing anyone can do".

Kristallnacht is a shocking memory for all civilized people. Let's remember, too, that this sort of genocide has happened repeatedly since World War II, in Communist nations, in primitive societies, and in other religiously intolerant communities.

I hope and pray that humanity will learn to 'live and let live' - but, on the basis of history, I'm afraid that's probably a forlorn hope.

Peter