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. …show more content…
He and Adolph Hitler saw Grynspan’s actions as an opportunity to incite Germans to “rise in bloody vengeance against the Jews.” They pounced on this opportunity. His actions gave the Nazis the “perfect” propagandist advantage to initiate violence against the Jews. On November 9, 1938, Joseph Goebbels gave an emotional speech that furthered the agenda of the Third Reich against the Jews. He spoke in the city of Munich to members of the Nazi party who had gathered to commemorate the anniversary of Hitler’s first attempt to gain power. Joseph Goebbels, Reinhard Heydrich, and Heinrich Himmler “ordered ‘spontaneous demonstrations’ of protest against the Jewish citizens of Munich” according to the article published by History.com regarding what eventually became known as Kristallnacht. These orders were not really spontaneous and as written by The Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, “At the time of the murder, ideas of a ‘public punishment of the Jews’ had been in the air for a long time. Orders were sent to German Storm Troopers to attack and destroy Jewish businesses, homes, and synagogues throughout Germany, not just Munich.” They were also told to dress as civilians to avoid any government connection. While Adolph Hitler was never officially tied to the attack, he was believed by many to have given the secret order for the raid to happen. Police and fire departments were told to not interfere in the …show more content…
Synagogues were set on fire and burnt to the ground as firemen stood at standby watching. They would interfere and take action only to prevent the fire from spreading to non-Jewish buildings while leaving the Jewish buildings to burn. Jewish businesses were either burnt down or had their windows broken. In the majority of the cases, both occurred when they were destroyed. While illegal, looting took place in many cases as well. That is where the name Kristallnacht comes from, as it roughly means, “night of broken glass.” The streets were literally strewn with shards of broken glass from the destructive attacks. Around 25,000 to 30,000 men were arrested and taken to concentration camps for being Jewish. In the concentration camps, they would often be brutalized and sometimes randomly chosen to be beaten to death. German official hoped that the trip to the concentration camp would “break their resistance and thereby force them to immigrate.” (The Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies) At that time, the ‘Final Solution’ of the Third Reich had not been created and implemented. Kristallnacht left nothing but the few remaining items of the victims along with the ruins of their homes, their religious buildings, and their businesses. Reinhard Heydrich reported to Hermann Goering after the events of November 9th,
At a time of loss, the German people needed a reason to rebuild their spirits. The Jews became a national target even though Hitler’s theory could not be proven. Even as a Jew, he accused the Jews people for Germany’s defeat in order to rally the people against a group of people Hitler despised. The story-telling of the Jews’ wickedness distracts the Germans from realizing the terror Holocaust. Millions of Jewish people died because Hitler said they caused the downfall of Germany. Innocent lives were taken. The death of millions mark the rise of Hitler. He sets the stage for the largest massacre in
Jewish citizens and families are being sent to these camps, held there forced to do work. They are put in chambers where multiple people, large groups and families are gassed with Zyklon B, and are left for dead. Nazis are sent to kidnap Jewish people right out of their houses to send them to these camps. Others were also just shot and killed on the spot. The jewish people tried to resist, but it is difficult with lack of weapons and resources. Hitler was trying to gain power and land from this genocide. He thought that if he took over the world he could be the most powerful person. He also wanted revenge, he was angry about the outcome of WWI and this sparked his interest to get back at his
“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” said by the enlightened Dalai Lama. The Jews, innocent and sympathetic, were treated like trash during Kristallnacht. The Night of Broken Glass was one of the most terrifying and brutal nights of German history, in addition Kristallnacht was an excuse for the Nazi party to eradicate the Jews and other minor ethnic groups. The Secret Police and the Waffen SS could determine if people were Jewish or not if they had certain attributes such as having blonde hair, having light blue eyes, and having a rectangular shaped forehead. Over hundreds were injured and a copious amount had died during Kristallnacht, in addition Jews were not only affected in Germany but also in “territories forcibly seized by Germany, Austria and Sudentland” (Kristallnacht: Overview). Kristallnacht, a doomsday for Jews, inducing in destruction of Jewish property, death of Jews, and social isolation.
Or they asserted that they were just being directed (Rensmann 170). This is actually unethical, he said. It is obvious that the responsibility is not able to rest completely on Nazi heads, as it remains apparent that the ordinary German resident was as well among the attempted genocide put in force by the individuals who provided Hitler’s cause. Most people appreciate the Holocaust’s nature, other than they fail to hold the whole country accountable. It remains impracticable to believe that the crime committed could have been focused entirely on one meticulous force movement.
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.
One of Hitler's many actions taken against the Jews was Kristallnacht, also known as the night of broken glass. On November 9, 1938 Hitler launched an enormous coordinated attack on Jews throughout the German Reich. During the first half of 1938, Hitler passed several laws restricting the Jewish economy. On October 28th of that very same year approximately 17,000 German Jews were arrested and relocated past the borders of Poland into "relocation camps". Among these 17,000 Jews was the family Grynszpan. Herschel, Zander Grynszpan's seventeen-year-old son, received news of his family's expulsion from their home and took matters into his own hands. Herschel went to the German embassy in Paris on November 7, 1938 with plans to assassinate the German Ambassador of France. However, Herschel was unable to assassinate the German ambassador. Instead he killed the Third Secretary Ernst vom Rath. Joseph Goebbels, Germany's chief of propaganda, decided to use Herschel's att...
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...
The Holocaust started in 1939. In that time period the Germans and the Allied Forces were in war. When they were in war the Germans took all Jews (except the ones in hiding) to multiple concentration camps and death camps. When they were sent to concentration camps they were ordered to take off all their jewelry, gold teeth and clothes. They were provided with stripped pajamas with numbers on them so they can be recognized by their number and not by their names. They were also tattooed on their left forearm with the same number that was on their stripped pajamas. Everybody’s head had to get shaved BALD. After everybody got to get concentration camps they were forced to go into the hard labor imme...
The Jewish people were targeted, hunted, tortured, and killed, just for being Jewish, Hitler came to office on January 20, 1933; he believed that the German race had superiority over the Jews in Germany. The Jewish peoples’ lives were destroyed; they were treated inhumanly for the next 12 years, “Between 1933 and 1945, more than 11 million men, women, and children were murdered in the Holocaust. Approximately six million of these were Jews” (Levy). Hitler blamed a lot of the problems on the Jewish people, being a great orator Hitler got the support from Germany, killing off millions of Jews and other people, the German people thought it was the right thing to do. “To the anti-Semitic Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, Jews were an inferior race, an alien threat to German racial purity and community” (History.com Staff).
Germany’s dictator at the time, Adolf Hitler, thought that the Jews were the cause of the defeat of Germany in 1918 (“Mass Hysteria Holocaust”). Hitler was able to convince a large amount of people that all of the Jews needed to be oppressed and killed by anyone who knew of them (“Mass Hysteria Holocaust”). He believed that the only worthy humans were those with blue eyes and blonde hair, eliminating most Jews (“The Voices of Victims”). Nazis began to collect many Jewish people in concentration camps, killing them off as if they were cattle (“Mass Hysteria
Approximately six million Jews were killed by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust. When Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on January 30th, 1933 there were 566,000 Jewish people living in Germany. The first concentration camp, Dachau, was created on March 22, 1933. Other concentration camps to be created during this time include Buchenwald and Ravensbruck. The first people to be arrested were Communists, labor leaders, and Communists. From 1933-1938 Jews gradually have their rights stripped away beginning with not being able to own land to not being considered citizens according to the Nuremberg Race Laws. Attacks on Jewish businesses and synagogues began on November 9th, 1938 when over the course of two days over 7,000 Jewish businesses and 250 synagogues were destroyed by Germans. Also, Jews were arrested and killed while these tragedies occurred. This series of events is known as Kristallnacht. It marks the beginning of the extreme discrimination and eventually genocide of the Jewish population.
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.
Little children ran away from their homes over broken glass and through spiky shrubs to get away. Some of the children had to witness their family being taken away and had to leave them behind to save themselves. A lot of them didn’t understand what was going on because they were so young. Not all the kids could get away and some were either killed or taken away to concentration camps. Parents lost their children to the Nazis and children lost their parents. The cost in damages were extremely expensive It was a horrific and grim day for Jews all around the world.
In Arnold Geier’s autobiography, Broken Glass, Broken Lives, Geier explains how his grandfather and father avoided their capture by the SA, a large group of people dedicated to Hitler’s cause. Geier’s entire family was Jewish, and they were in a constant state of fear due to the inevitable danger they faced every day. On November 8, 1938, Geier’s grandfather was informed of the arrival of the SA and planned to leave with Geier’s father shortly after to stay with friends and associates. The night of November 9, 1938, was the Night of Broken Glass. Members of the SA displayed their nationalism and dedication to the Nazi party by destroying Jewish shops and painting violent phrases on the walls (Geier 34-35). The SA consisted primarily of men whose sole purpose was street-fighting and spreading propaganda. They visibly displayed the absent-minded, harmful ideology that became common to them during the Holocaust. While Geier’s grandfather
Jewish buildings were destroyed and Jewish men were killed. Over 1,000 synagogues were burned, 7,000 Jewish businesses were wrecked. This event was planned by Dr.Joseph Goebbels and other Nazis (Holocaustresearchproject.org) . Thirty thousand more male Jews were arrested the next day for the crime of religious beliefs (holocaustresearchproject.com). More laws were passed making the Jewish children housebound. The Nazis not only targeted the Jews for being their “main problem” but also groups that were racially or genetically inferior to them. Between 1933 and 1935 laws were passed to reduce the number of genetically "inferior" individuals in the gene pool (History.com) . The group included the disable, Jews, African German, Blacks and Gypsies. Almost 15,000 homosexuals were placed in concentration camps and the 20,000 Jehovah witnesses were banned in April 1933 (Holocaustresearchproject.org) . They lost their jobs and were denied unemployment benefits, social welfare, and pensions (History.com) . most of the Jehovah's Witnesses were put in concentration camps in her children were sent to orphanages and detention centers (Holocaustresearchproject.org) . Half of the Jewish population of Germany fled to the United States, Palestine, in Latin America (History.com) . The Jews that remained in Germany were unable to obtain visas to leave, were too poor to leave, or could not obtain sponsorship (History.com) . Squads consisted of four groups of between 500 and 900 men that were ordered to kill the Jews on the spot (holocaustresearchproject.org) . In 1942 it was decided that the death camps would be a faster method of killing, so the Einsatzgruppen ended (Holocaustresearchproject.org) . Approximately 1,500,000 Jews were killed during the Einsatzgruppen. In September 1941 the Nazis begin to use gas vand which were trucks that were filled with people that were locked in and they were