ERNST BEHM: "The fear was so great that we often didn't have the courage to help our Jewish fellow citizens. Many were helped, more than one might think, but all in secret."

INGE DEUTSCHKRON: "That was the turning point. That was when the Jews in Germany understood they could no longer live in peace as German Jews. That became clear after this night of violence."During the pogrom, some 30,000 Jewish males were rounded up and taken to concentration camps. This was the first time Nazi officials made massive arrests of Jews specifically because they were Jews, without any further cause for arrest. LORE MAY: "There were 500, 600 people - Germans, shouting and singing. There was a lady, I couldn't see her face. They pulled her down the street by her hair." In its aftermath, German officials announced that Kristallnacht had erupted as a spontaneous outburst of public sentiment in response to the assassination of Ernst vom Rath. Vom Rath was a German embassy official stationed in Paris. Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old Polish Jew, had shot the diplomat on November 7, 1938. A few days earlier, German authorities had expelled thousands of Jews of Polish citizenship living in Germany from the Reich; Grynszpan had received news that his parents, residents in Germany since 1911, were among them.

Article media libraries that feature this video: Germany, history of Germany, Holocaust, Kristallnacht, Nazi Party Some lawmakers who hoped to change the country’s restrictive immigration quota laws saw an opportunity in the wave of sympathy among Americans for refugees after Kristallnacht. On February 9, 1939, Senator Robert F. Wagner (D-NY) and Representative Edith Nourse Rogers (R-MA) introduced identical bills into Congress to offer refuge to 20,000 children under 14 from the Greater German Reich. Despite widespread support, the Wagner-Rogers Bill died in Congress. The quota system remained unchanged throughout the war and into the 1960s. A Turning Point The president also announced that he had recalled the US ambassador to Germany, Hugh Wilson. The United States was the only nation to recall its ambassador and would not replace him until after the end of the war in 1945. Explore the range of reactions to the violence of Kristallnacht among the German people. What pressures and motivations may have influenced their choice to participate, to help the victims, or to turn away? So although the Holocaust is history, it’s really not so distant. In fact, some survivors are still alive to tell the tale – memoirists like Dr Edith Eger and Eddie Jaku can still recall the horrors with burning clarity. And with the rising tide of antisemitism and fascism around the world, it feels more pertinent than ever to remember those whose lives were stolen (both physically and mentally), to ensure such hatred never seeps so deeply into society again.In the weeks that followed, the German government promulgated dozens of laws and decrees designed to deprive Jews of their property and of their means of livelihood. Many of these laws enforced “Aryanization” policy—the transfer of Jewish-owned enterprises and property to “Aryan” ownership, usually for a fraction of their true value. Ensuing legislation barred Jews, already ineligible for employment in the public sector, from practicing most professions in the private sector. The legislation made further strides in removing Jews from public life. German education officials expelled Jewish children still attending German schools. German Jews lost their right to hold a driver's license or own an automobile. Legislation restricted access to public transport. Jews could no longer gain admittance to “German” theaters, movie cinemas, or concert halls. American Press Reports on Kristallnacht The Nazi regime expanded and radicalized measures aimed at removing Jews entirely from German economic and social life in the forthcoming years. The regime moved eventually toward policies of forced emigration, and finally toward the realization of a Germany “free of Jews” ( judenrein) by deportation of the Jewish population “to the East.” The events of Kristallnacht represented one of the most important turning points in National Socialist antisemitic policy. Historians have noted that after the pogrom, anti-Jewish policy was concentrated more and more concretely into the hands of the SS. Moreover, the passivity with which most German civilians responded to the violence signaled to the Nazi regime that the German public was prepared for more radical measures. Pogrom November 1938: Testimonies from Kristallnacht, Edited by Ruth Levitt, book review: Night hope was shattered NARRATOR: Hitler's Reich in the 1930s - the propaganda of the Nazi regime appeals to the German ethnic community, and decides who belongs where, from childhood onwards. Those who don't fit the picture, such as the Jews, are disdained, disenfranchised, persecuted. It begins with the boycotting of Jewish businesses, and leads ever more frequently to violence.

We would like to thank Crown Family Philanthropies and the Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation for supporting the ongoing work to create content and resources for the Holocaust Encyclopedia. Kristallnacht owes its name to the shards of shattered glass that lined German streets in the wake of the pogrom—broken glass from the windows of synagogues, homes, and Jewish-owned businesses plundered and destroyed during the violence. Assassination of Ernst vom Rath How did the events of Kristallnacht compare to previous anti-Jewish actions and violence in Germany under the Nazis?How did the United States and other nations respond to the news of the nationwide riot? What responsibilities do other nations have to the persecuted citizens of another sovereign nation, if any? It’s easy enough to think that the Holocaust is simply a relic of the past; that it belongs only in history textbooks or in museum displays. Yet, the devastation and destruction it caused lives on today, which is why remembering it is so important.