The Kristallnacht.
("Crystal Night" or "Night of the Broken Glass"). Pogrom massacre or riot against Jews) carried out by the Nazis throughout Germany and Austria on November 9-10, 1938. The name Kristallnacht refers to the glass of the shop windows smashed by the rioters. Officially, Kristallnacht was launched in retaliation for the assassination on November 7 of a German embassy official in Paris, named Ernst vom Rath by a young Jewish refugee named Herschel Grynszpan. On November 9 vom Rath died of his injuries.
That same night, a group of Nazi leaders gathered in Munich to
commemorate the anniversary of Hitler’s (failed) attempt to take over the
Bavarian Government in 1923. The Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Joseph
Goebbels, told the other participants that the time had come to strike at the
Jews. The Nazi leaders then sent instructions to their men all over the country
they were not supposed to act as if they had launched the pogrom, but were
to participate all the same. Within hours, crazed rioting erupted. The shop
windows of Jewish businesses were smashed, the stores looted, hundreds of
synagogues and Jewish homes were burnt down and many Jews were
physically assaulted. Some 30,000 Jews, many of them wealthy and
prominent members of their communities, were arrested and deported to the
concentration camps at Dachau, Sachsenhausen, and Buchenwald, where
they were subjected to inhumane and brutal treatment and many died. During
the pogrom itself, some 90 Jews were murdered.
After the pogrom was over, the Nazis continued with severe anti-Jewish
measures. The aryanization process of seizing Jewish property was
intensified; the Jewish community was forced to pay a fine of one billion
reichsmarks, ostensibly as a payback for the death of vom Rath; and the
Germans set up a Central Office for Jewish Emigration ,Zenstralstelle fuer
Juedische Auswanderung, to "encourage" the Jews to leave the country.
Western countries and even the Soviet Union were shocked by the
Kristallnacht pogrom, and some governments began admitting more refugees
("Crystal Night" or "Night of the Broken Glass"). Pogrom massacre or riot against Jews) carried out by the Nazis throughout Germany and Austria on November 9-10, 1938. The name Kristallnacht refers to the glass of the shop windows smashed by the rioters. Officially, Kristallnacht was launched in retaliation for the assassination on November 7 of a German embassy official in Paris, named Ernst vom Rath by a young Jewish refugee named Herschel Grynszpan. On November 9 vom Rath died of his injuries.
That same night, a group of Nazi leaders gathered in Munich to
commemorate the anniversary of Hitler’s (failed) attempt to take over the
Bavarian Government in 1923. The Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Joseph
Goebbels, told the other participants that the time had come to strike at the
Jews. The Nazi leaders then sent instructions to their men all over the country
they were not supposed to act as if they had launched the pogrom, but were
to participate all the same. Within hours, crazed rioting erupted. The shop
windows of Jewish businesses were smashed, the stores looted, hundreds of
synagogues and Jewish homes were burnt down and many Jews were
physically assaulted. Some 30,000 Jews, many of them wealthy and
prominent members of their communities, were arrested and deported to the
concentration camps at Dachau, Sachsenhausen, and Buchenwald, where
they were subjected to inhumane and brutal treatment and many died. During
the pogrom itself, some 90 Jews were murdered.
After the pogrom was over, the Nazis continued with severe anti-Jewish
measures. The aryanization process of seizing Jewish property was
intensified; the Jewish community was forced to pay a fine of one billion
reichsmarks, ostensibly as a payback for the death of vom Rath; and the
Germans set up a Central Office for Jewish Emigration ,Zenstralstelle fuer
Juedische Auswanderung, to "encourage" the Jews to leave the country.
Western countries and even the Soviet Union were shocked by the
Kristallnacht pogrom, and some governments began admitting more refugees