Kristallnacht- The night of broken glass

Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, occurred on November 9th, 1938. Before we can understand what went on that night it is important to understand what was going on at this point in time. At this point in Germany, and other Nazi-occupied countries, the Jews were hated by most. The Nazis had taken away many of the rights that Jews possessed and had begun to put them in ghettos and send them to concentration camps.

On the night of November 9th, violent anti-jewish riots broke out across Germany, and part of Czechoslovakia. Over the next 48 hours, thousands of Jews were terrorized by the Nazis and Nazi supporters this night over 1,000 synagogues (Jewish prayer spaces) were burned, and over 7,500 Jewish businesses, homes, and schools were destroyed. 91 Jews were murdered. Another 30,000 men were arrested and sent to concentration camps, which was basically a death sentence. The Nazis justified this violence as reactions to the assassination of German Foreign official Ernst vom Rath, who was shot 2 days earlier by a 17-year-old Polish Jew who was upset about the deportation of his family. The also claimed that the Jews themselves were to blame for the riots and should be fined one billion Reichsmarks (about 400 million dollars).

The night came to be known as Kristallnacht, "the night of broken glass" because of all the shattered windows and glass the filled the streets. After this night the many of the Jews who had not already realized it realized it was time for them to leave, but they had nowhere to go. This was also a big turning point for the Nazi regime. It signified the change from antisemitic laws and discrimination to violent antijewish measures which would become what we now call the Holocaust. 

Susan's story

Susan was only 15 years old on November 9th, 1938. She recounts that that night she woke up to noise and shouting and screaming. About 8 men came in a smashed Susan's home. After destroying many of the other rooms of the house and locking Susan's parents in the bathroom, the men came into the room that Susan shared with her younger sister. She says that they ripped her night dress to shreds. She was embarrassed and terrified. They tend threw her heavy dresser over her and left, assuming that the dresser would have killed her. Luckily another table that was overturned stopped the dresser from crushing Susan and she was able to get out. After the men left she got her sister out from under the bed and they released their parents from the bathroom. Their maid, who was a Hitler admirer, was shocked that he would do something like this. They also had had a friend staying with them who begged them to come and live with her so that they could avoid any future attacks, but they said no. The next morning Susan went out on her bike to go check on her family friends to see if they had survived the horrors of the previous night. After that night everyone wanted to get out of Nuremberg. They were terrified and traumatized and knew it was time to leave. Susan's family left for Munich where the British council had promised her family shelter at the consulate. However, they were never able to reach the consulate as they were stopped by soldiers and told to go back to Nuremberg. Susans says that the memory of that night will stay with her forever.

Thousands more experienced the horrors that Susan experienced that night. Many were not as lucky as Susan and did not make it out alive. Other lost loved ones and were unable to escape. Many ended up in concentrations camps were they suffered and died. Everything these people suffered was because of the hate of one very powerful man and all of his followers. 







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https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/kristallnacht
http://www.holocaustandhumanity.org/kristallnacht/kristallnacht-november-9-10/
http://timewitnesses.org/english/%7Esusan.html