86: Kristallnacht

86 years ago today (November 9, 1938) Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) – German: Novemberpogrome – occurred.

(A destroyed Jewish Shop in Germany in November 1938.)

The Nazi Party (the Sturmabteilung, the Schutzstaffel, the Hitler Youth) along with the Regular German Police and Ordinary German Men, Women and Children carried out an Anti-Jewish Pogrom throughout Germany and Austria. 

It was a premediated attack that was carried out after the 17 year old German-Born Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan, murdered the German Diplomat, Ernst vom Rath, in Paris, France when the Germans deported his Family from Germany to Poland – along with 17,000 other Polish-German Jews – where they were forced to live in No-Man’s Land between Germany and Poland since neither country wanted them.

The Germans burned and destroyed 267 Synagogues; 7,500 Jewish Businesses (including 29 Jewish Department Stores) and arrested 30,000 Jewish Men and sent them to Concentration Camps throughout Germany and Austria.

91 Jews were murdered on Kristallnacht and over 638 took their own lives.

The Nazis forced all the Jews to pay the “Judenvermögensabgabe” (Jewish Capital Levy) for the damage done during the Pogrom. All Jewish Insurance Money went to the Nazis as did the Equivalent of $7 Billion US Dollars in 2024 Money paid by the Individual Jews themselves.

The only way any of the 30,000 Men sent to a Concentration Camp after Kristallnacht could be released was for their Family to show they had a Foreign Visa to leave Germany and Austria.

215,000 Jews fled Germany and Austria from November 1938 to September 1939– after being forced to give the Nazis all their property.

Many more wanted to flee, but the Anti-Semitism around the Rest of the World (the UK, Canada, Cuba, Brazil, the US, etc.) made it nearly impossible to do.

Kristallnacht is considered the actual start of the premediated Government Violence against Jews during the Holocaust.

Sadly, Pogroms against the Jews continue to happen inside Israel (by Palestinian Hamas), in the US, Egypt, in Jordan, in Turkey, in Iran, in Algeria, in Lebanon, in Saudi Arabia, in Syria, in Yemen, in Hungary, in Argentina, in Chile, in Uruguay, in Venezuela, in Germany, in Russia, in the UK, in Canada, in France, in the Netherlands and in most places around the World.

Jewish Men, Women and Children are being attacked by Ordinary People in 2023 the same way they were back in 1938.

“Never Again!” Needs to become a reality and not just a catchy slogan.