Kristallnacht, “Night of the Broken Glass”, was a pogrom by the Nazi Party, against the German and Austrian Jews. The Nazi Party was a government group in charge of Germany, that ran based on the idea that Jews were the enemy, and should be wiped out. Before Kristtalnacht, there had been acts of anti-semitism, but none quite as big. This was the big event that made people look up from their own lives and realize the Nazis were dangerous. It served as a warning for both Jews, and westerners who were outside the conflict. This horrifc event was truly the turning point in the Holocaust. It is treated as a symbol of the Holocaust, being one of the most unexpected and destructive events as well as the first. It is also considered the starting point, …show more content…
While he survived the initial blast, he was pierced by shrapnel. Two days after the attack, he died of an infection on June 4, 1942. Himmler and Hitler himself mourned his death, calling him “one of the best National Socialists, one of the staunchest defenders of the concept of the German Reich and one of the greatest opponents of all enemies of this Reich.” On June 9th, Reinhard Heydrich’s funeral was held. At the same time, Hitler ordered a series of retaliatory attacks to be launched. They were focused on two small Czech towns, Lidice und Leáky. At the commemoration for the Beer Hall Putsch, Goebels gave a speech. The speech was taken as a command for action, and regional party leaders gave instructions to their members to act. The violence started late at night, and occurred through the early morning. Kristallnacht was supposed to appear to be from the public, and spontaneous. In reality, it was highly organized and controlled by the Nazi Party. Reinhar Heydrich gave orders to the Sturmführer (the Nazi party militia) and Hitler Youth groups to attack. They were dressed in civilian clothing, to support the public. Heydrich was the ringleader behind it all, and he was the one issuing the …show more content…
Many took the opportunity of being in temples to destroy and loot them. On top of all this destruction, they were instructed to bring back as many Jews as the local jail could hold, preferably healthy young men. Herschel Gryszpan is largely forgotten, even though he played a huge part in history. He was the reason that the Nazi party gave for bringing about Kristallnacht. Herschel Grynszpan was 17 years old, a Polish Jew living abroad in Paris, away from his family. After a new series of laws were published in October 1938, Jews were allowed to be kicked out of Germany and not allowed re-entry. Poland also did not allow the displaced Jews into their country, and most ended up stuck on the border. Of these stuck people, most ended up in Polish concentration camps. This is what happened to the Gryszpan family. Upon hearing this news, Herschel was enraged, and sent a letter to his uncle who lived in Paris. The letter read “I have to protest in a way that the whole world hears my protest, and this I intend to do. I beg your forgiveness.” On November 7th, he went to the German Embassy in Paris, and asked to speak to an
The Holocaust could be best described as the widespread genocide of over eleven million Jews and other undesirables throughout Europe from 1933 to 1945. It all began when Adolf Hitler, Germany's newest leader, enforced the Nuremburg Race Laws. These laws discriminated against Jews and other undesirables and segregated them from the rest of the population. As things grew worse, Jews were forced to wear the Star of David on their clothing. The laws even stripped them of their citizenship.
Kristallnacht was a savage night where hundreds where murdered. In addition, Kristallnacht means the night of broken glass in German, and The Night of Broken Glass occurred on the night of November 9th until November 10th. Kristallnacht took place in small parts of Austria, Sudentland, and all over Germany in addition discrimination of the Jews had dated all the way back to 1935 by Germans. Two years before Kristallnacht, Jews were treated unfairly and ignored by the society, furthermore Germans did not allow Jews attend public parks and in 1936, Jews were banned to come see the Olympic Games which were held in Germany at the time. Kristallnacht got its nickname The Night of Broken Glass due to the fact that during November 9th and 10th rioters and police, violent and extreme, sh...
The Holocaust was a very sad time in the world. Holocaust was the killing of millions of Jews and other people by the Nazis during World War II. The Nazi who was an army, very powerful and claim control of Germany in January 1933. Their beliefs were that the Germans were the ‘’superior race’’ and that the Jews, deemed "inferior," were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community.
She described in her memoir witnessing the changes in her town that came along with the new Nazi policies, including several examples of Jewish definition and expropriation, which played a vital role in her experience of the Holocaust. Very early on, following the invasion of the Nazis, the Jews were made to publicly identify themselves by not only having JEW stamped on their ration cards according to Weissmann Klein, but also wearing a prominent yellow Star of David with the bold lettering JEW on their clothing at all times (Weissmann Klein, 36). During this time the Jewish only received half the rations of non-Jews. Shortly following the required identifiers, several other regulations were put into place further denying Jews civil rights. The first of these instances experienced by Weissmann Klein being her family’s forced relinquishing of personal belongings and then the removal from their home into their basement. As in many other instances that Weissmann Klein had observed, a former family maid took was permitted by the SS to take up residence in the main house. The Weissmann family lived in that state of poverty and unknowing for several years, until the morning of April 19, 1942, when “all Jews were ordered to prepare to move to the shabby remote quarter of town…” (Weissmann Klein, 72), which further separated the Jewish
Glass shatters easily. Just like the hearts, souls, and lives of so many people who were subjected to one of the most awful crimes against humanity. One of the horrific events involving the Jews prior to the beginning of the Holocaust happened in the fall of 1938. This event was known as Kristallnacht, which translates into “The Night of Broken Glass” and was carried out as the result of the killing of Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan for the forced deportation of his parents and thousands of other Polish Jews living in Germany at the time. The Nazi Party ordered attacks on Jewish communities throughout the country. During Kristallnacht, as the night came to be known, Jews in Germany, whether citizens or not, were targeted and attacked.
On November 9th,1938, there was a major change in the lives of many Jews that lived in Germany. This night will forever be known as the Kristallnacht. In German, “Kristall” translates to crystal and “Nacht” translates to night. In English, it translates to “ The Night of Broken Glass.” The Kristallnacht was one of the worst times in history due to reasons behind why Hitler chose to stage the event, the extensive property damage and violence that occurred, and the affect on the Jews after that evening.
Kristallnacht has been described by James M. Deem as “a night of terror, where the Nazis raided the Jews shops by breaking the windows and destroying their things” (Deem 6). Kristallnacht was also referred to as “the night of the broken glass” because of all the broken windows from the Jewish houses and shops. In “Night”, Kristallnacht was described as a night of anti-Jewish riots. During this time Jewish homes were robbed, synagogues burned, Jewish businesses destroyed, and many Jews were, arrested, tortured, beaten, or killed. A tax was then imposed by the government on the Jews. They were being forced to pay for Kristallnacht property damage. The Germans wanted to try and terrorize the Jews by doing this. After the night of Kristallnacht, over 30,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps. Also lots of Jewish artifacts were destroyed. The rest of the world started to become aware of what was happening and decided that they should help them. They started sending their armies to rescue the Jews in the concentration
November 9th, 1938: The precursor to the Holocaust or the start of it itself? In either case, by November 11th––with thousands of Jewish stores looted and/ or destroyed, several hundred synagogues burned down, and houses vandalized and robbed––the appearance of war had seemingly passed through Central Germany. Kristallnacht, otherwise known as the “Night of Broken Glass”, was one the events that most likely struck fear into all the hearts and minds of the Jewish family's within Hitler's Third Reich. The atrocities committed against a whole population within a region were all caused by one young man's actions, which shows how ruthless yet organized the Nazi regime truly was. Oppressing Jews was the Nazi's way of showing Germany who was in control and those against it would be silenced in one way or another.
Jews tried to escape this targeting however. As the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh states, even before the Holocaust, Jewish people had to flee Germany due to discrimination and anti-Semitism. They most of the time emigrated to Palestine, England, and the United States. Small numbers of Jews also immigrated to countries in South America. The amount of Jews that immigrated took an even larger jump when Hitler took leadership in 1933, especially when he introduced the Nuremberg Laws which began to actively restrict Jews in Germany (“Jewish Life during the Holocaust”). In the end we see that anti-Semitism, Germany’s loss of World War I and its economic decline, and a racial struggle between Aryans and Jews caused the Jews to be singled out for extermination.
It is told that on the night of November 9 and early November 10, 1938, Nazis incited a pogrom against the Jewish in Austria and Germany. It is termed, “Kristallnact” (“Night of Broken Glass). This night of violence included pillaging and burning of synagogues, breaking of the windows in Jewish owned businesses, looting, and physically attacking of Jewish people. Approximately, 30,000...
A holocaust is defined as a disaster that results with the tremendous loss of human life. History, however, generally identifies the Holocaust to be the series of events that occurred in the years before and during World War II. The Holocaust started in 1933 with the persecuting and terrorizing of Jews by the Nazi Party, and ended in 1945 with the murder of millions of helpless Jews by the Nazi war-machine. "The Holocaust has become a symbol of brutality and of one people's inhumanity to another." (Resnick p. 11)
They were deported on packed trains. Many people died on the trains from hunger, disease, thirst, and suffocation. The Jews could be on the trains for months at a time. Soon after Germany separated from Austria in March 1938, the Nazi soldiers arrested and imprisoned Jews in concentration camps all over Germany. Only eight months after annexation, the violent anti-jew Kristallnacht, also known as Night of the Broken Glass, pogroms took place.
The Holocaust was a very important part of the history and had a lasting effect. The German citizens fears that if they tried to help the Jews, then they would get involved in the Holocaust. In the book “The Night” by Elie Wiesel, it tells us clearly what exactly was happening in the concentration camps. The Dehumanization on the Jews reduced the Jews to nothing in a blink of an eye. In the book, “The Night” Wiesel tells the reader all about the horrific things the Nazis did to dehumanize the Jews in the concentration camps. They tortured and killed the Jews and created this famous historical event called the Holocaust which left a scar in the people’s lives that will never heal. The Nazis did all sorts of things to dehumanize the Jews such as stripping the Jews of their identity and personal belongings, the rotten condition that they were forced to live in, and how poorly the Jews were treated. The Holocaust was one of the twentieth century's worst tragedies that was made possible by the Nazis prejudice and hostility towards the Jews and fear from German citizens.
In September of 1939 German soldiers defeated Poland in only two weeks. Jews were ordered to register all family members and to move to major cities. More than 10,000 Jews from the country arrived in Krakow daily. They were moved from their homes to the "Ghetto", a walled sixteen square block area, which they were only allowed to leave to go to work.
The Holocaust is one of the most famous events in modern history. The senseless slaughter of millions upon millions of innocent people at the hands of Nazi butchers was incited when a man by the name of Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933. The Nazis wrought terrible death and destruction on Europe in the following years, beginning with Aryanization and ending with the Final Solution in a maniacal plot to exterminate and purify the human race. The Holocaust should be remembered by all as a dark point in modern history.