Kristallnacht 70 years on

Karen Pollock

Published 08 November 2008

Seventy years after the terror and cruelty of Kristallnacht, the event should not be simply consigned to our history books writes Karen Pollock of the Holocaust Educational Trust

Can you imagine your neighbours being attacked and dragged away – and you doing nothing? Seeing their houses looted and torched – and you saying nothing?

Seventy years ago on Sunday 9th November the Nazi government sanctioned widespread destruction of property and wanton terror and violence against the Jewish communities of Germany and Austria. In the space of a few hours more than 1000 synagogues were torched, tens and thousands of Jewish businesses and homes ransacked and destroyed, 91 people murdered and more than 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps.
The name given to this night of terror was Kristallnacht or Night of Broken Glass in reference to the shattered glass that carpeted the streets – a testimony – even a trophy to the perpetrators ‘achievement’ in causing widespread destruction.

In the years that followed Kristallnacht, it came to mean so much more than mere broken glass. Kristallnacht came to represent broken lives, broken families, the collapse of civilisation and humanity. It signalled the prelude to the annihilation of six million Jewish people and millions of others, including from the Roma and gay community, disabled people and political opponents. It signalled the prelude to the Holocaust.