On November 9th and 10th, 1938, a wave of anti semitic violence crashed over Germany. In just two days 250 Jewish houses of worship were ransacked, more than 7,000 Jewish owned businesses destroyed and dozens of Jewish men and women killed. The police sat back and watched as Jewish homes, cemeteries, and schools were defaced and looted. Kristallnacht, literally cristal night or “The night of broken glass” gets its name from the shards of glass that littered the streets in the wake of the pogrom. The next day over 30,000 Jewish men were rounded up and forced into concentration camps. Jewish youth, already denied access to public museums, playgrounds and swimming pools, were now thrown out of public schools as a further act of segregation. Many Jews lost hope during this time and committed suicide to escape the hell that had become life for them in Germany.
The attacks were said to have been provoked by the assassination of German ambassador Ernst vom Rath in Paris, France, two days prior to the pogrom. Vom Rath was shot by 17 year Herschel Grynszpan, who was acting out of despair for his parents who, like many other Polish Jews, were trapped in between Germany and Poland, barred from entering either country. Two days later, Nazi party members gathered in Munich for the commemoration of the abortive Nazi Putsch of 1923, an important date for the socialist party. German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels seized the opportunity to blame the entire Jewish community for the death of Ernst vom Rath, as well as to preach to the group of gathered Nazis that although not a command, a night of anti semitic violence would not be stopped if one arose.
As one last slap in the face to the Jews, the Nazi state fined the Jewish community 400,000,000 dollars for the damages done. They also ordered that Jews clean the streets and make their own repairs to any broken property. Insurance agencies withheld any payment for the damage done to jewish shops and homes. This semi-organized, semi-spontaneous eruption of violence against Jews was a turning point for the Nazi party as they took the silence of the general public after the event to mean that the people were on board with what they were doing, or at least weren’t trying to stop it.
sources: www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007697, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht, www.britannica.com/event/National-Socialism
The attacks were said to have been provoked by the assassination of German ambassador Ernst vom Rath in Paris, France, two days prior to the pogrom. Vom Rath was shot by 17 year Herschel Grynszpan, who was acting out of despair for his parents who, like many other Polish Jews, were trapped in between Germany and Poland, barred from entering either country. Two days later, Nazi party members gathered in Munich for the commemoration of the abortive Nazi Putsch of 1923, an important date for the socialist party. German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels seized the opportunity to blame the entire Jewish community for the death of Ernst vom Rath, as well as to preach to the group of gathered Nazis that although not a command, a night of anti semitic violence would not be stopped if one arose.
As one last slap in the face to the Jews, the Nazi state fined the Jewish community 400,000,000 dollars for the damages done. They also ordered that Jews clean the streets and make their own repairs to any broken property. Insurance agencies withheld any payment for the damage done to jewish shops and homes. This semi-organized, semi-spontaneous eruption of violence against Jews was a turning point for the Nazi party as they took the silence of the general public after the event to mean that the people were on board with what they were doing, or at least weren’t trying to stop it.
sources: www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007697, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht, www.britannica.com/event/National-Socialism