When was crystal night

Includes brief biographical information for each contributor. Berlin: Topography of Terror Foundation, F57 [ Find in a library near you ].

Examines the events in the months leading up to Kristallnacht, the November Pogrom, and its after-effects. Includes historical images, a recommended reading list, a list of abbreviations, and an index. Schleunes, Karl A. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, G33 S29 [ Find in a library near you ].

Traces the evolution of anti-Jewish legislation and sentiment throughout the s and the erosion of Jewish culture and status in Nazi Germany in the years leading up to World War II.

Includes a detailed analysis of the year —and Kristallnacht in particular—as a turning point in the history of the Third Reich. Includes an extensive bibliography, an updated bibliographic essay written by the author for the second edition, and an index.

Tenenbaum, Joseph. E83 Y3 v. Argues that the failure of other countries to resolve immigration issues, most notably at the Evian Conference, emboldened Nazi Germany into forcibly expelling foreign Jews in and, ultimately, to the violence of Kristallnacht and the Holocaust.

Marino, Andy. Boston: Faber and Faber, G M38 [ Find in a library near you ]. Biography of Herschel Grynszpan that provides a detailed account of the assassination of Ernst vom Rath. Marrus, Michael. Westport, CT: Meckler, J4 N38 v. Summarizes the life of Herschel Grynszpan, his assassination of Ernst vom Rath, and his fate at the hands of French and German officers after the shooting.

Roizen, Ron. Survey of the available sources on Herschel Grynszpan, specifically those that contend he survived the war and settled in Paris. Schwab, Gerald. New York: Praeger, G S37 [ Find in a library near you ].

Detailed account of the assassination of vom Rath and the treatment of his killer by French and German officials. Includes photographs, an extensive bibliography, an appendix listing key individuals mentioned in the text, and an index. Ball-Kaduri, K. Provides translated reports of seven officials from Jewish organizations in Berlin describing their responses to Kristallnacht. Based on archival collections at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

Benz, Wolfgang. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, G4 E93 [ Find in a library near you ]. Gehler, Michael. G3 A v. Details the particularly brutal nature of Kristallnacht in Innsbruck, Austria, in which three Jews were murdered and several others severely injured. Gilbert, Martin. Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction. G G55 [ Find in a library near you ]. Thorough account of the events of November 10, , with emphasis on the experiences of those targeted by Nazi mobs.

Based primarily on eyewitness accounts. Includes numerous photographs and maps as well as a bibliography and index. Hamburger, Arno. G N [ Find in a library near you ]. First-hand account written by a survivor who was a year-old resident of Nuremberg at the time.

Herz, Yitzhak S. Detailed, first-person account written by a resident of Dinslaken, Germany, that describes not only Kristallnacht but also the ensuing restrictions on the lives of Jews in the town. Kley, Stefan. Kochan, Lionel. Pogrom, 10 November London: A. Deutsch, G K [ Find in a library near you ]. History of Kristallnacht, including a discussion of the aftermath of the riots and an overview of worldwide public reaction.

Includes a brief bibliography and an index. Loewenberg, Peter. Pehle, Walter H. New York: Berg, G J [ Find in a library near you ]. Collection of essays from various scholars exploring the origins of Kristallnacht and its aftereffects on the Jews of Germany. Places the event in the overall context of the history of the Third Reich and the Holocaust.

Read, Anthony, and David Fisher. Kristallnacht: The Nazi Night of Terror. 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.

David Buffum, the American Consul in Leipzig , reported: "The shattering of shop windows, looting of stores and dwellings of Jews took place in the early hours of 10 November In one of the Jewish sections an 18 year-old boy was hurled from a three-story window to land with both legs broken on a street littered with burning beds. The main streets of the city were a positive litter of shattered plate glass.

All of the synagogues were irreparably gutted by flames. One of the largest clothing stores was destroyed. No attempts on the part of the fire brigade were made to extinguish the fire. It is extremely difficult to believe, but the owners of the clothing store were actually charged with setting the fire and on that basis were dragged from their beds at 6 a. The day after Kristallnacht, the Nazi Party held a rally in Nuremberg. Around , people attended in order to hear the anti-Jewish invective of Julius Streicher , the man known to be the most rabid anti-semite in Nazi Germany.

Instead, the faces of ordinary Germans - that is, the collective face of Nuremberg and of Germany - can be seen there conveying their ardent support for their government and the eliminationist program. And they were standing there telling us how they had spent the night. They said they had been at a shop, the Eichengrun in Munich, and they'd smashed the windows, and they'd got hold of one Jew and shaved the hair on his head.

And I said, You horrible pigs! And I thought, I have to find out the truth, what was really going on. And that was when I really started to ask serious questions.

On 11th November, , Paul Briscoe was told by his teacher that the day's lessons had been cancelled and that they had to attend a meeting in Miltenberg : "Whatever was going to happen must have been planned well in advance, for the streets were lined with Brownshirts and Party officials, and the boys from the senior school were assembled in the uniform of the Hitler Youth. A festival atmosphere filled the town. But there was something angry and threatening in the air, too.

The boys were then marched to the Miltenberg Synagogue. For a long moment, nobody moved and all was quiet. Then, another command was shouted - I was too far back to make out the words - and the boys at the front broke ranks, flying at the synagogue entrance, cheering as they ran. When they reached the door, they clambered over each other to beat on it with their fists.

I don't know whether they broke the lock or found a key, but suddenly another cheer went up as the door opened and the big boys rushed in. We youngsters stood still and silent, not knowing what to expect.

Some of the seniors were on the balcony, tearing up books and throwing the pages in the air, where they drifted to the ground like leaves sinking through water. A group of them had got hold of a banister rail and kept rocking it back and forth until it broke. When it came away, they flung the spindles at the chandelier that hung over the centre of the room. Clusters of crystal fell to the floor. I stood there, transfixed by shock and disbelief.

What they were doing was wrong: why weren't the adults telling them to stop? And then it happened. A book thrown from the balcony landed at my feet. Without thinking, I picked it up and hurled it back. I was no longer an outsider looking on. I joined in, abandoning myself completely to my excitement. We all did. When we had broken all the chairs and benches into pieces, we picked up the pieces and smashed them, too.

We cheered as a tall boy kicked the bottom panel of a door to splinters; a moment later, he appeared wearing a shawl and carrying a scroll. He clambered up to the edge of the unbanistered balcony, and began to make howling noises in mockery of Jewish prayers. We added our howls to his. Briscoe then described what happened next: "As our laughter subsided, we noticed that someone had come in through a side door and was watching us.

It was the rabbi: a real, live Jew, just like the ones in our school textbooks. He was an old, small, weak-looking man with a long dark coat and black hat. His beard was black, too, but his face was white with terror. Every eye in the room turned to him. He opened his mouth to speak, but before the words came, the first thrown book had knocked his hat off. We drove him out through the main door where he had to run the gauntlet of the adults outside.

Through the frame of the doorway I saw fists and sticks flailing down. It was like watching a film at the cinema, but being in the film at the same time. I caught close ups of several of the faces that made up the mob. They were the faces of men that I saw every Sunday, courteously lifting their hats to each other as they filed into church.

The Miltenberg Synagogue interior was destroyed during Kristallnacht. Forty-three Miltenberg Jews emigrated and 42 relocated within Germany. In , the remaining ten Jews were deported to Izbica and to Theresienstadt. At least 39 Miltenberg Jews perished in the Shoah". Goebbels commented: "I am of the opinion that this is our chance to dissolve the synagogues.

All those not completely intact shall be razed by the Jews. The Jews shall pay for it. There in Berlin, the Jews are ready to do that. The synagogues which burned in Berlin are being leveled by the Jews themselves. We shall build parking lots in their places or new buildings.

That ought to be the criterion for the whole country, the Jews shall have to remove the damaged or burned synagogues, and shall have to provide us with ready free space. I deem it necessary to issue a decree forbidding the Jews to enter German theaters, movie houses and circuses.

I have already issued such a decree under the authority of the law of the chamber for culture. Considering the present situation of the theaters, I believe we can afford that. Our theaters are overcrowded, we have hardly any room. I am of the opinion that it is not possible to have Jews sitting next to Germans in varieties, movies and theaters.

One might consider, later on, to let the Jews have one or two movie houses here in Berlin, where they may see Jewish movies. But in German theaters they have no business anymore. Furthermore, I advocate that the Jews be eliminated from all positions in public life in which they may prove to be provocative.

It is still possible today that a Jew shares a compartment in a sleeping car with a German. Therefore, we need a decree by the Reich Ministry for Communications stating that separate compartments for Jews shall be available; in cases where compartments are filled up, Jews cannot claim a seat.

They shall be given a separate compartment only after all Germans have secured seats. They shall not mix with Germans, and if there is no more room, they shall have to stand in the corridor. The only people who were punished for the crimes committed on Kristallnacht were members of the Sturm Abteilung SA who had raped Jewish women. The judge ruled that this was worse than murder, since they had violated the Nuremberg Laws on sexual intercourse between Aryans and Jews.

Such offenders were expelled from the Nazi Party and turned over to the civil courts. The judge released those charged with murder as they were only following orders. Ulrich von Hassell , a former German diplomat, was appalled by the events of Kristallnacht and the reactions of the major foreign powers: He wrote in his diary: "I am writing under the crushing emotions evoked by the vile persecution of the Jews after the murder of vom Rath.

Not since the World War have we lost so much credit in the world, and that shortly after the greatest foreign policy successes. But my chief concern is not with the effects abroad, not with what kind of foreign political reaction we may expect - at least not for the moment. The debility and amnesia of the so-called great democracies is moreover too monstrous.

Proof is the signing of the Franco-German Anti-War Agreement at the same time as the furious indignation worldwide against Germany, and the British ministerial visit to Paris. I am most deeply troubled about the effect on our national life which is dominated ever more inexorably by a system capable of such things There is probably nothing more distasteful in public life than to have to acknowledge that foreigners are justified in criticizing one's own people.

As a matter of fact they make a clear distinction between the people and the perpetrators of acts as these. It is futile to deny, however, that the basest instincts have been aroused, and the effect, especially among the young, must have been bad. Johannes Popitz , the Minister of Finance.

However, as far as the methods were concerned, I repeatedly advocated a somewhat more gradual approach, particularly in light of diplomatic considerations. Although he despised the barbarism of the Nazi Regime, he wanted to see the Reich dominating central and eastern Europe. However, Emil Nolde , the famous German artist, reacted to Kristallnacht in a much more positive wat. The Jewish community was forced to pay the costs of Kristallnacht: "The Jews were ordered to replace all damaged property, though their insurance - when they had any - was confiscated.

At the same time new decrees were issued denying the , of them a chance to earn a livelihood. They were forbidden to participate in trade or the professions; they were dismissed from all important posts in incorporated companies. On 21st November, , it was announced in Berlin by the Nazi authorities that 3, Jewish retail businesses in the city had either been transferred to "Aryan" control or closed down. Further restrictions on Jews were announced that day. To enforce the rule that Jewish doctors could not treat non-Jews, each Jewish doctor had henceforth to display a blue nameplate with a yellow star - the Star of David - with the sign: "Authorised to give medical treatment only to Jews.

He was horrified by what he found and went straight to the British Embassy to see Sir Neville Henderson , the British ambassador, who hoped he would contact Lord Halifax , the British foreign secretary, about what could be done to help.

He told me he could do nothing. The Ambassador Sir Neville Henderson, was in London and the Foreign Office, acting on instructions from Lord Halifax, had told him to do nothing that might offend Hitler and his minions. After Kristallnacht the numbers of Jews wishing to leave Germany increased dramatically. The problem was that the world's politicians reacted in a similar way to those dealing with the Syrian refugee crisis. Sweden had taken in a large number of Jewish refugees since However, the government felt it had taken too many already.

According to one source "this attitude was shared by the Jewish minority in Sweden, who were apprehensive that an influx of Jewish refugees might arouse anti-semitic sentiments". The American Ambassador based in Stockholm reported: "No matter how great the sympathy for the Jews may be in Sweden it is apparent that no one really wants to take the risk of creating a Jewish problem in Sweden also by a liberal admission of Jewish refugees.

Most of the world looked to the United States to take these Jewish refugees. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was approached by Jewish organizations to change the quota system employed by the United States. The combined German and Austrian annual quota of 27, was already filled until January It was suggested that the quotas for the following three years to be combined, allowing 81, Jews to enter immediately.

President Roosevelt believed that such a move would not be popular with the American people. A public opinion poll conducted a few months after Kristallnacht asked: "If you were a member of Congress would vote yes or no on a bill to open the doors of the United States to a larger number of European refugees than now admitted under our immigration quotas?

Of the 8. As the authors of Crystal Night: November pointed out: "At the very time when sympathy for the victims was at its height, ten Americans out of eleven opposed massive Jewish immigration into the United States. Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes , put forward a plan to settle large numbers of German and Austrian Jewish refuges in the virtually uninhabited mile-long Kenai Peninsula , in Alaska.

However, four Alaskan Chambers of Commerce passed resolutions opposing the settlement plan. Felix S. Cohen , one of the Interior Department lawyers, told Ruth Gruber , how Ickes "was determined to help refugees" but that "a whole group of Alaskans came all the way down here just to fight us. Bringing give thousand Jews a year would start race riots. Philip Noel-Baker , the Labour Party representative for Derby , and a leading Quaker , argued in the House of Commons , that Neville Chamberlain had been morally wrong to make concessions to Hitler and it was time to change policy towards Nazi Germany.

He proposed a two-point programme: the threat of reprisals, to halt the arrest and expulsion of the Jews; and the immediate creation of a rehabilitation agency for the hundreds of thousands of emigrants. Certainly they can gather the resources, human and material, that are needed to make a new life for this pitiful human wreckage. That wreckage is the result of the mistakes made by all the Governments during the last twenty years. Let the Governments now atone for those mistakes. The refugees have surely endured enough.

Dr Goebbels said the other day that he hoped the outside world would soon forget the German Jews. He hopes in vain. His campaign against them will go down in history with St Bartholomew's Eve as a lasting memory of human shame. Let there go with it another memory, the memory of what the other nations did to wipe the shame away. Chamberlain's rejected Noel-Baker's proposals but did have a meeting with Edouard Daladier , the prime-minister of France on 24th November.

Daladier claimed that France had already accepted 40, Jewish refugees and urged Britain and the United States to do more. Chamberlain told Daladier that Britain was weekly admitting hundred Jewish refugees: "One of the chief difficulties, however, was the serious danger of arousing anti-semitic feeling in Great Britain. Indeed, a number of Jews had begged His Majesty's Government not to advertise too prominently what was being done.

French newspapers tended to support Daladier. One newspaper argued: "France is a hospitable country. It will not allow a properly accredited diplomat to be assassinated in Paris by a foreign pig who was evading a deportation order The interests of national defence and of the economy do not permit us to support the foreign elements which have recently installed themselves in and around our capital.

Paris has too long been a dumping ground for international hoodlums, the right of asylum must have limits. The French Socialist Party published a resolution of its executive committee "noting with regret that of all the government of the democratic countries only the French ministers had not thought fit to express publicly their disapproval of the Nazis government's crimes The SFIO urges workers to combine forces before the hateful repression embodied in fascism, and to join with the Socialist party in opposing all racial prejudice and in defending the conquests of democracy and the rights of man against adversaries.

The Jewish National Council for Palestine sent a telegram to the British government offering to take 10, German children into Palestine. The full cost of bringing the children from Germany and maintaining them in their new homes, as well as their education and vocational training would be paid for by the Palestine Jewish community and by "Zionists throughout the world".

The Colonial Secretary, Malcolm MacDonald , told his Cabinet colleagues that the proposal should be rejected because of a forthcoming conference to be held in London, between the British government and representation of Palestinian Arabs, Palestinian Jews, and the Arab States". He argued that "if these 10, children were allowed to enter Palestine, we should run a considerable risk that the Palestinian Arabs would not attend the Conference, and that, if they did attend, their confidence would be shaken and the atmosphere damaged.

Neville Chamberlain was very unsympathetic to the plight of the Jews. He wrote to a friend: "Jews aren't a lovable people; I don't care about them myself.

They may not be our fellow subjects, but they are our fellow men. Tonight I plead for the victims who turn to England for help Thousands of every degree of education, industry, wealth, position, have been made equal in misery. I shall not attempt to depict to you what it means to be scorned and branded and isolated like a leper.

The honour of our country is challenged, our Christian charity is challenged, and it is up to us to meet that challenge. Six days later Chamberlain announced that the government would allow a total of 10, Jewish children to enter the country. However, their parents would have to remain in Nazi Germany. He also stated that Jewish refugee organisations in Britain would have to maintain them and would be responsible for finding homes for the children.

Anne never saw her parents again as both died at the hands of the Nazis. A Jewish boy who had witnessed the destruction of the synagogue in the village of Hoengen was another child who was allowed to live in Britain later wrote: "Standing at the window of the train, I was suddenly overcome with a maiming certainty that I would never see my father and mother again.

There they stood, lonely, and with the sadness of death It was the first and last time in my life that I had seen them both weep. Now and then my mother would stretch her hand out, as if to grasp mine - but the hand fell back, knowing it could never reach. Can the world ever justify the pain that burned in my father's eyes? As the train pulled out of the station to wheel me to safety, I leant my face against the cold glass of the window, and wept bitterly.

In a leading article in Pravda compared the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany with the pogroms in Tsarist Russia: "The economic difficulties and the discontent of the masses have forced the fascist leaders to resort to a pogrom against the Jews to distract the attention of the masses from grave problems within the country But anti-semitic pogroms did not save the Tsarist monarchy, and they will not save German fascism from destruction.

On 9th February, , Senator Robert F. Wagner , introduced a Senate Resolution that would have allowed 20, German Jewish refugee children of fourteen and under into the United States. One argument raised against the bill was that the admission of these refugee children "would be against the laws of God, and therefore would open a wedge for a later request for the admission of 40, adults - the parents of the children in question". One newspaper claimed that America should concentrate on looking after its own children.

Another objection raised was that the bill would create a dangerous precedent that would result in the wholesale breakdown of the existing immigration statutes. The bill "died in committee" and no further action was taken. An estimated 30, Jews were sent to concentration camps after Kristallnacht. However, in January , Reinhard Heydrich ordered police authorities all over Germany to release all Jewish concentration camp prisoners who had emigration papers.

They were to be told that they would be returned to the camp for life if they ever came back to Germany. I remember that when he came home, it was late in the evening. I remember when he rang the doorbell he looked strange to us.

Although he never had much hair All had immigration quota numbers, issued by the American Consulates in Germany, entitling them to enter the United States. However, this was for the years and Henry Morgenthau , Secretary of the Treasury and a Jew, suggested that the refugees be given tourist visas. Cordell Hull , Secretary of State, rejected the idea. All these countries refused to take a single one of these refugees. This was ignored and the St Louis returned to Europe.

Britain took , France , Belgium and Holland Those in Britain were safe but more than of those who were given haven by France, Belgium and Holland were killed after being deported to the death camps together with French, Belgian and Dutch Jews. It has been estimated , Jews left Germany in the ten months or so between November and September It has been calculated that between and , approximately two-thirds of the Jewish population of Germany left the country.

Almost , had been given refuge in the United States and 65, in Britain. Palestine, with all the restrictions imposed on it, accepted 58, It is estimated that between , and , of those left in Germany died in the concentration camps. The instructions below are to be applied in dealing with these events:.

The chiefs of the State Police, or their deputies, must immediately upon receipt of this telegram contact, by telephone, the political leaders in their areas - Gauleiter or Kreisleiter - who have jurisdiction in their districts and arrange a joint meeting with the inspector or commander of the Order Police to discuss the arrangements for the demonstrations.

The police are instructed to supervise the observance of this order and to arrest looters. On the assumption that the guidelines are observed, the demonstrations are not to be prevented by the police, who are only to supervise the observance of the guidelines. On receipt of this telegram, police will seize all archives to be found in all synagogues and offices of the Jewish communities so as to prevent their destruction during the demonstrations. This refers only to material of historical value, not to contemporary tax records, etc.

The archives are to be handed over to the locally responsible officers of the SD. The control of the measures of the Security Police concerning the demonstrations against the Jews is vested in the organs of the State Police, unless inspectors of the Security Police have given their own instructions. As soon as the course of events during the night permits the release of the officials required, as many Jews in all districts, especially the rich, as can be accommodated in existing prisons are to be arrested.

Special care is to be taken that the Jews arrested in accordance with these instructions are not ill-treated. Of course, following the rise of our new ideology, international Jewry was boiling, with rage and it was perhaps not surprising that, in November, , one of them took his vengeance on a counsellor of the German Legation in Paris.

Although it was very late the entire leadership staff were there in assembly, the Bann Leader and about two dozen others, of all ranks. I was told that an important confidential discussion was in progress. In the corridor the sub-Bann Leader called me and asked how old I was. Then he said: "Well, you're a bit young still, but you'd better come all the same: Come with me.

But there was little resistance. We carried out our orders in competent military fashion. We went in groups of up to twelve men with clubs to break the shop windows. And the night was full of the music of smashed and splintering glass, and the chorus of our Anti Jewish songs "I am a Jew, do you know my nose," and "Ikey Moses has the dough.

Or rather, he did stay there but he didn't caterwaul for long. One thing seriously perturbed me. This should have been a test case, calling for firm and decided action. Nothing of the kind was done. The Jews were let off with a punitive levy; only a few of them were put in a concentration camp, the rest were tamely allowed to emigrate. I felt the whole thing to be rather an unsatisfactory expression of National Socialist ideals. At first, I thought I was dreaming, but then the rhythmic, rumbling roar that had been growing inside my head became too loud to be contained by sleep.

The rage of the crowd was directed at the small haberdasher's shop on the opposite side of the marketplace. Nobody was looking my way, so I dared to open the window a little, just enough to hear what all the shouting was about.

The words rushed in on the cold, late autumn air. Ju-den raus! I didn't understand it. I was frightened for her. The mob was yelling for her to come out, calling her "Jew-girl" and "pig" - " Raus, du Judin, raus, du Schwein! The crowd roared its approval, but the roar subsided as people began to nudge and point. Three storeys above them, a window was opened, and a pale, frightened face looked out. The window was level with mine, and I could see Mira very clearly.

Additionally, more than 30, Jewish men were arrested and sent to the Dachau , Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen concentration camps in Germany—camps that were specifically constructed to hold Jews, political prisoners and other perceived enemies of the Nazi state. On November 15, , Franklin D. Roosevelt , the American president, 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.

He also recalled Hugh Wilson, his ambassador to Germany. One reason was anxiety over the possibility that Nazi infiltrators would be encouraged to legally settle in the U. A more obscured reason was the anti-Semitic views held by various upper-echelon officials in the U. State Department. One such administrator was Breckinridge Long , who was responsible for carrying out policies relating to immigration.

The violence of Kristallnacht served notice to German Jews that Nazi anti-Semitism was not a temporary predicament and would only intensify. As a result, many Jews began to plan an escape from their native land. Arthur Spanier and Albert Lewkowitz were two who wanted to come to the U.

After Kristallnacht, he was sent to a concentration camp, but was released upon receiving a job offer from the Cincinnati, Ohio-based Hebrew Union College. Spanier applied for an American visa, but none was forthcoming.

Julian Morgenstern , president of the college, traveled to Washington, D. Morgenstern was told that Spanier was denied the visa because he was a librarian and, according to U.

State Department rules, a visa could not be issued to an academic in a secondary educational position even if a major American educational institution had pledged to support him. Lewkowitz, a philosophy professor at the Breslau Jewish Theological Seminary, was granted a visa. He and Spanier traveled to Rotterdam, the Netherlands, but were trapped there when the Germans invaded in May Bureaucrats at the American consulate suggested that he acquire another visa from Germany.

Given the circumstances, this would be impossible. Both men soon found themselves in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Spanier lost his life there, while Lewkowitz was released in during a prisoner exchange. That year, he settled in Palestine.

Not all those who were impacted by Kristallnacht were practicing Jews. Edith Stein , a German philosopher and nun, was born a Jew but converted to Catholicism. In , she was accepted as an initiate at the Carmelite convent in Cologne, Germany, and took the name Teresa Benedicta a Cruce.