Remembering Kristallnacht, the 'Night of Broken Glass' (November 9, 1938)

SignOnSanDiego.com ^ | November 9, 2007 | Hilda Pierce

[DogByte6RER]

Remembering Kristallnacht, the 'Night of Broken Glass'

By Hilda Pierce

November 9, 2007

Crystal Night is a beautiful name for an evil event that took place in Austria and Germany on the night of Nov. 9, 1938. It was orchestrated on the orders of Adolph Hitler's minister of propaganda, Josef Goebbels. Adolf Eichmann also had a part in organizing the “Night of Broken Glass,” the night of burning synagogues, smashing windows of Jewish stores, looting, killing or torturing Jews on the streets and in their homes, 69 years ago today. It is a historical date because it was also the birthday of Martin Luther, born in 1483.

This is my story:

At age 16, Jewish, born and living in Vienna, I witnessed Hitler and his hordes parade into Vienna, to effect the “Anschluss” (annexation of Austria to the Germany). I stood trembling and frozen in fear, eye to eye, just 10 feet away from Hitler, slowly passing by in his Mercedes staff car on March 12, 1938.

Every day brought new threats, new horrors, new fears, and less hope for Jews.

Miraculously, I found a way to escape to England in August of that year, alone, without money, without parents.

In London, the Jewish Children's Refugee Committee found foster homes for me. Being under 18, I was not allowed to take a job.

While I was still in Vienna, we were robbed of all our valuable possessions. Our beautiful apartment was filled with valuable furnishings, paintings, Persian carpets, Rosenthal China, silver and other treasures. Our antique furniture store and warehouses were stocked with furniture, paintings and other valuables, even the bedroom set of the Austrian princess Marie Antoinette. All of it was “voluntarily and legally” obtained by Nazi force. It was, when at 2 in the morning, six SS and SA men (storm troopers) pounded on our apartment door. Roused from bed, my father let them in. He was ordered to sit at his desk and sign papers giving them all of our possessions, our store, warehouses, bank accounts and jewelry.

I screamed, “Papa, don't sign, don't sign!” but my mother dragged me out of the room, fearing for our lives. The Nazi robbers left. We were numb, stunned, but alive.

A month later, when I had already fled to England, my parents were forced into a coal cellar, without sanitary facilities, with many other Jewish families. When they had to go out into streets to get food some never came back.

In Paris, on Nov. 7, 1938, a 17-year-old boy, Herschel Grynszpan, distraught over the treatment of his German Jewish parents in Poland, shot and killed the German minor official Herr von Rath. That was the excuse for Kristallnacht two days later.

Thousands of people participated in this horrendous carnage, an organized massacre dictated by Berlin. Not just hoodlums, but ordinary middle-class men and women, neighbors, former friends, smashed windows, looted Jewish shops, burned synagogues, tortured and beat senseless thousands of Jews and the rest sent to concentration camps. In my Vienna, the bloodshed was even greater; hundreds of Jews committed suicide. There it happened on Nov. 9. Austrians had one great regret, that so much needless damage was inflicted on property.

Crystal Night was the beginning of the Holocaust. It sowed the seeds for the Second World War. Had Hitler been stopped at that time, the war and genocide might have been avoided. All these valuable people, Jews who had contributed so much to the world in science, art, music, mores and medicine, could have continued giving their invaluable gifts to mankind.

Hitler killed not only 6 million Jews but also 60 million other people. It was the darkest chapter in European history.

The English family with whom I lived was loving and kind. They brought my parents to England shortly before the start of the war, saving their lives.

Saying goodbye to mother and father again in 1940, I came to America on a French ship, attacked by German submarines.

Back in England, my parents were arrested as German citizens and put into separate internment camps on the Isle of Man, to be released many months later.

In September 1943, through German mines and the U-boat-infested Atlantic, in a convoy of 21 ships, 12 of which were sunk, my parents arrived in New York. They, my husband, baby and I, were reunited in Chicago, a family once more. Our greatest joy and pride was receiving the great honor of American citizenship.

I now live with my husband and little dog in a 20th-floor apartment here in San Diego. I call it my studio in the sky.

[isrul]

Just because people decry Nazi behavior, that won’t stop them from doing virtually the same things because, after all, they will be justified, in their own minds.

[isrul]

I don’t know. I didn’t author the statement, just commented on its relevance.

[isrul]

I think Luther’s antipathy toward the Pope and Papacy and his actions resulting from both are of much greater historical significance than his beliefs about Jews. Europe was anti semitic before Marty came along.

[SoCalPol]

I saw Buchenwald when I was in East Germany in 1983.

Also a great uncle in Paton’s 3rd was one of those who liberated Buchenwald

[SoCalPol]

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great Lutheran Pastor

When Hitler came to power in 1933, Bonhoeffer became a leading spokesman for the Confessing Church, the center of Protestant resistance to the Nazis

In 1939 his brother-in-law introduced him to a group planning the overthrow of Hitler, and he made significant contributions to their work. (He was at this time an employee of the Military Intelligence Department.) He was arrested in April 1943 and imprisoned in Berlin. After the failure of the attempt on Hitler’s life in April 1944, he was sent first to Buchenwald and then to Schoenberg Prison.

On Sunday 8 April 1945, he had just finished conducting a service of worship at Schoenberg, when two soldiers came in, saying, “Prisoner Bonhoeffer, make ready and come with us,” the standard summons to a condemned prisoner. As he left, he said to another prisoner, “This is the end — but for me, the beginning — of life.” He was hanged the next day, less than a week before the Allies reached the camp.

Tens of Thousands of other Lutherans met the same fate

[Diogenesis]

SSDD

LEAKING AMERICAN SECRETS TODAY

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LEAKING AMERICAN SECRETS IN THE PAST

[ruthles]

I often think of that too. I think even more people were murdered there.

[ruthles]

I teach English as a Second language, and last night I reminded the students that there would be no class on Monday due to Veteran’s Day. I then felt obligated to talk about what it is to be a Veteran, and i gave a very brief review of Germany after WW1, the slow sanctions placed on Jews which led up to the concentration camps. I felt it my patriotic duty to honor soliders.
I have two Arabic students. All along I was thinking “I wonder if they don’t believe the Holocaust occurred....?”

[DogByte6RER]

I agree with you 100%

Remember that at the time that Kristallnacht occurred, Hitler and Stalin were also good buddies and less than two years later they carved up Poland together.

[Brad’s Gramma]

I felt it my patriotic duty to honor soliders.

THANK you!!!!