KRISTALLNACHT, November 9-10, 1938

The Holocaust, called in Hebrew HaShoah, was the Nazi systematic slaughter of all Jews. It began officially in 1933, when Hitler and the Nazis came to political power in Germany, and it lasted until 1945, when Germany accepted military defeat at the hands of the Allies. During that time, the Nazis committed atrocities unique in the history of the world.

The process of brutalizing and tormenting Jews because they were considered a subhuman race went back to the 1920s as a major part of the Nazi platform. In 1925 Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, which emphasized the need to punish all Jews for their perfidy. However, until the Nazi policy became the law in Germany, the anti-Semitic actions of the 1920s were viewed as mere thuggery.

The Holocaust is historically divided into three periods. The first of these was from 1933 to 1939. The goal of Nazi Germany was to make the state free of Jews by making it financially, emotionally, and physically impossible for the Jewish population to survive there.

Almost immediately upon assuming the Chancellorship of Germany, Hitler began promulgating legal actions against Germany's Jews. In 1933, he proclaimed a one-day boycott against Jewish shops, a law was passed against kosher butchering and Jewish children began experiencing restrictions in public schools. By 1935, the Nuremberg Laws deprived Jews of German citizenship. By 1936, Jews were prohibited from participation in parliamentary elections, and signs reading "Jews Not Welcome" appeared in many German cities. (Incidentally, these signs were taken down in the late summer in preparation for the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin).

In the first half of 1938, numerous laws were passed restricting Jewish economic activity and occupational opportunities. In July, 1938, a law was passed (effective January 1, 1939) requiring all Jews to carry identification cards. On October 28, 17,000 Jews of Polish citizenship, many of whom had been living in Germany for decades, were arrested and relocated across the Polish border. The Polish government refused to admit them so they were interned in "relocation camps" on the Polish frontier.

Among the deportees was Zindel Grynszpan, who had been born in western Poland and had moved to Hanover, where he established a small store, in 1911. On the night of October 27, Zindel Grynszpan and his family were forced out of their home by German police. His store and the family's possessions were confiscated and they were forced to move over the Polish border. Zindel Grynszpan's seventeen-year-old son, Herschel, was living with an uncle in Paris. When he received news of his family's expulsion, he went to the German embassy in Paris on November 7, intending to assassinate the German Ambassador to France. Upon discovering that the Ambassador was not in the embassy, he settled for a lesser official, Third Secretary Ernst vom Rath. Rath was critically wounded and died two days later, on November 9.

The assassination provided Goebbels, Hitler's Chief of Propaganda, with the excuse he needed to launch a pogrom against German Jews. Grynszpan's attack was interpreted by Goebbels as a conspiratorial attack by "International Jewry" against the Reich and, symbolically, against the Fuehrer himself. This pogrom has come to be called Kristallnacht, "the Night of Broken Glass."

On the nights of November 9 and 10, gangs of Nazi youth roamed through Jewish neighborhoods breaking windows of Jewish businesses and homes, burning synagogues and looting. In all 101 synagogues were destroyed and almost 7,500 Jewish businesses were destroyed. 26,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps, Jews were physically attacked and beaten and 91 died.

The official German position on these events, which were clearly orchestrated by Goebbels, was that they were spontaneous outbursts. The Fuehrer, Goebbels reported to Party officials in Munich, "has decided that such demonstrations are not to be prepared or organized by the party, but so far as they originate spontaneously, they are not to be discouraged either."

Three days later, on November 12, Goering called a meeting of the top Nazi leadership to assess the damage done during the night and place responsibility for it. Present at the meeting were Goering, Goebbels, Reinhard Heydrich, Walter Funk and other ranking Nazi officials. The intent of this meeting was two-fold: to make the Jews responsible for Kristallnacht and to use the events of the preceding days as a rationale for promulgating a series of antiSemitic laws which would, in effect, remove Jews from the German economy.

It was decided at the meeting that, since Jews were to blame for these events, they be held legally and financially responsible for the damages incurred by the pogrom. Accordingly, a fine of 1 billion marks was levied for the slaying of Vom Rath, and 6 million marks paid by insurance companies for broken windows was to be given to the state coffers. Incidentally, it was at that meeting that Walter Funk called the night of rioting, killing and looting "Kristallnacht.

"Following the meeting, a wide-ranging set of antiSemitic laws were passed which had the clear intent, in Goering's words, of "Aryanizing" the German economy. Over the next two or three months, the following measures were put into effect:

Jews were required to turn over all precious metals to the government.
Pensions for Jews dismissed from civil service jobs were arbitrarily reduced.
Jewish-owned bonds, stocks, jewelry and art works can be alienated only to the German state.
Jews were physically segregated within German towns.
A ban on the Jewish ownership of carrier pigeons.
The suspension of Jewish driver's licenses.
The confiscation of Jewish-owned radios.
A curfew to keep Jews of the streets between 9:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. in the summer and 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. in the winter.
Laws protecting tenants were made non-applicable to Jewish tenants.

Kristallnacht thus marked the beginning of the end for European Jewry during the Holocaust.

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