Lessons of ‘night of broken glass’ recalled on its 75th anniversary
A solemn yet inspiring program to mark the 75th anniversary of one of the saddest chapters in the history of mankind will take place this Saturday evening, Nov. 9, in Wilmette. The free event is open to the public, but online reservations are required.
Kristallnacht 75, presented by the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, will commemorate and reflect on the first organized act of Nazi violence against the Jewish people of Germany and Austria that culminated in the murder of 6 million Jews.
Called Kristallnacht and translated from the German as the “night of broken glass,” that fateful night of Nov. 9, 1938, marked the beginning of Nazi Germany’s policy of physical violence against the Jewish people and helped establish the country’s policies for the persecution and death of thousands of others of various nationalities, ethnicities and faiths.
Presented in cooperation with the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, the Kristallnacht 75 ecumenical program will feature remarks from area dignitaries and religious, academic and community leaders on the implications of Kristallnacht.
Two world-renowned cantors — Albert Mizrahi, one of the world’s leading interpreters of Jewish music, and Benjamin Warschawski, recognized worldwide for his exceptional talents in both operatic and cantorial realms — will perform with a choir.
“Our hope is that the Kristallnacht commemoration will not just be a remembrance of the past, but provide an opportunity to remind the world of what can happen when such ideologies take control,” said Al Gruen, Kristallnacht 75 program chair. “Many of today’s tragedies are a result of the same mindset, a misguided belief that does not allow for the people of the world to live together peacefully.
“Programs such as these help ensure the phrase ‘Never Again’ is heard around the world.”
Among the featured speakers at the Kristallnacht 75 ecumenical program are: Christian Brecht, consul general of the Federal Republic of Germany; Dr. Robert Pickard, national commander of the Jewish War Veterans of the USA; Rolf Weil, president emeritus of Roosevelt University; Rabbi Herman Schaalman, rabbi emeritus at Congregation Emanuel in Chicago; Phil Blackwell, Senior Pastor, First United Methodist Church at Chicago Temple; Bishop Wayne Miller of Metropolitan Chicago Synod; U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider and Rick Hirschhaut, executive director of the Illinois Holocaust Museum.
Serving as moderator will be Robert Watson, professor of American Studies at Lynn University, Boca Raton, Fla., a presidential historian with 34 books in print.
Information and updates about the program are available by visiting the Kristallnacht 75 website at www.kristallnacht75.org. People are required to register online to reserve their seat. They’ll receive a ticket that they should print out and bring to the event. The event will be broadcast live at that website and is expected to be shown on television citywide at a later date.
The event was moved from the museum to Beth Hillel Congregation Bnai Emunah, 3220 Big Tree Lane in Wilmette, because it can accommodate 1,200 people. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. and will close promptly at 6:30 p.m.; late arrivals may not be seated. The formal program and live webcast begin at 7 p.m.
Alberto Mizrahi, a Greek-born tenor, is Hazzan of the historic Anshe Emet Synagogue, Chicago. He has thrilled audiences worldwide in recitals, symphony concerts, and opera. His repertoire spans nine languages.
He has recorded with the legendary jazz pianist, Dave Brubeck and his quartet (“Gates of Justice”) for the Milken Archive on the Naxos label, and with Theodore Bikel (“Our Song”) for Opus Magica.
Benjamin Warschawski operatic repertoire includes Alfredo in La Traviata, the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto, Don José in Carmen, Mario Cavaradossi in Tosca, Manrico in Il Trovatore, Calaf in Turandot, and the title roles in Werther, Edgar and L’amico Fritz.
He holds the position of chief cantor at the prestigious Ezra Habonim/the Niles Township Congregation in Chicago, and splits his time between Chicago and New York where he resides.
Kristallnacht
On the evening of Nov. 9, 1938 — and into the next day — life as they knew it was destroyed for the Jews of Germany and Austria. Throughout Germany and Austria, the Nazis staged pogroms, anti-Jewish riots. At least 91 Jews were murdered outright, over 30,000 arrested and sent to concentration camps. Over 1,000 synagogues were burned, 7,000 Jewish-owned businesses damaged or destroyed, and Jewish homes, schools, and institutions ransacked. The numbers, however, do not tell the story. In Vienna alone, 94 synagogues and Jewish houses of worship were either partially or destroyed, burned in full view of fire departments and the public. The role of the fire departments in Austria, as in Germany, was to ensure that surrounding properties did not burn. The crime committed against a community by its government, was experienced by individuals, each experience unique.
History
The Jewish community in Germany began to take root in the fourth to 10th centuries of the common era. The first authentic document relating to Jews in Germany refers to Cologne on the Rhine and dates from 321 C.E. The late 18th and 19th centuries saw a period of Jewish emancipation, enlightenment and prosperity in Germany. Jewish Germans experienced success in all fields of endeavor.
They were at the forefront of science, business and the arts. Notable individuals such as Albert Einstein and Martin Buber spent much of their lives in Germany, being shaped by, as well as helping to shape, the culture of Germany and Austria. Loyal citizens, many of Germany and Austria’s Jews were also proud to serve their countries in the First World War, fighting and dying along side their Protestant and Catholic neighbors and colleagues.
Germany’s loss in the war, coupled with the severe terms of the Treaty of Versailles, led to many fringe groups, each with their own brand of nationalism and espousing their own solutions for Germany’s real and imagined troubles.
Germany’s situation worsened exponentially in the Great Depression. The German Worker’s Party (predecessor to the Nazi) party had 54 members when Adolf Hitler joined in 1919. By the end of 1920, the renamed National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP or Nazi) had 3,000 members. On November 8-9, 1923 there was an attempt by the NSDAP to violently overthrow the government, first in Bavaria, then at the national level in Berlin. This attempt failed and resulted in Hitler’s arrest. Hitler served 264 days of his five year sentence, and enjoyed special treatment, visitors and luxuries not afforded to other prisoners.
While in prison in Landsberg, he wrote Mein Kampf together with Rudolph Hess and others. The book spelled out his racial theories, hatred of Communists and Jews, who he labeled as traitors, as well as his blueprint for the future of Germany. By 1932, a scant 13 years after becoming the 55th member, Hitler, who had been released from prison in 1924, had grown the party to over 1 million members. The votes that the Nazis received in the 1932 elections established the Nazi Party as the largest parliamentary faction of the Weimar Republic government. Adolf Hitler was appointed as Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. After effectively eliminating any opposition within the government, the Nazis were free to enact anti-Semitic legislation, with the goal of encouraging Germany’s Jews to emigrate.
Legislative anti-Semitism
At first the Nazis confined their anti-Semitic activities to the legal and legislative front. From 1933 until the outbreak of war in 1939, over 400 decrees and regulations restricted all aspects of the public and private lives of Germany’s Jews. While many of these laws were national and had been issued by the German administration and affected all Jews, in addition there were state, regional, and municipal officials, who, on their own initiative, enacted exclusionary decrees in their own communities.
This legislation was not unique to Germany. Having annexed Austria on March 13th to widespread support, the Germans quickly codified legislative anti-Semitism in Austria. In April, this German annexation, known as the Anschluss, was retroactively approved in a direct vote by the Austrian people on this question. The vote was manipulated to reflect that approximately 99 percent of the Austrian people wanted this union with Germany. Jews and Roma (Gypsies) were not allowed to vote on this matter.
When all is said and done, hundreds of bureaucrats at all levels of municipal, state, regional and national government throughout Germany were involved in the persecution of Jews as they enacted and enforced anti-Jewish legislation. Germany’s treatment of the Jews under its control led to a worldwide refugee situation. As the conditions for the Jews under Nazi control worsened, country after country, including the United States, refused to alter immigration quotas to allow Germany’s Jews to escape Nazi persecution.
In an effort to resolve the refugee situation, representatives from 32 countries met at the French resort of Evian in July 1938. During the nine day conference, delegate after delegate expressed sympathy for the plight of the refugees. However, the result of the conference was discouraging. With the exception of the Dominican Republic, no country, including the United States and England, agreed to alter quotas to allow Jewish refugees to enter.
Violent anti-Semitism
The Nazi government, emboldened by the results at Evian, decided to act on its conclusion that the now-trapped Jews were not leaving Germany either fast enough or in great enough numbers. As mid-1938 approached, plans had been drawn up for anti-Jewish actions, or pogroms. Hitler, partly because of Evian, felt that the world had given him a free hand in handling Germany’s “Jewish problem.”
Nov. 9, which loomed large in National Socialist lore, was selected as the date for the action. All that was needed was a pretext (although the Nazis claimed that the riots of Kristallnacht were spontaneous). The pretext came on the morning of Nov. 7, when a young Jew named Herschel Grynszpan, upset over his family’s deportation from Germany to Poland, purchased a revolver, a box of bullets, and went to the German embassy in Paris. Grynszpan asked to see an embassy official, and was taken to see Ernst vom Rath. Grynszpan allegedly fired five shots at vom Rath, striking him twice. Vom Rath died of his wounds on Nov. 9th. The Nazis now had their pretext and timing for the pogroms. Ironically, vom Rath, who had been under investigation by the Gestapo, became the martyr and pretext for the worst (to date) pogrom in history.
Kristallnacht today
Reflecting on the experiences of Kristallnacht, and the Holocaust as a whole, it is important to be able to make connections to today’s political and social environments. While the Holocaust was a result of a certain time and place, the human behavior that fueled such atrocities remain with us today, as evidenced by events seen all over the world.
The experience of Germany’s and Austria’s Jewish communities was the direct result of institutionalized, legislated racism and hatred directed at a minority by its government. It is the responsibility of citizens in a democracy to ensure that the rights of the weakest are protected, and that the rights of a minority never be put to the popular vote of the majority. Many of today’s tragedies are a result of the same mindset, a misguided belief that does not allow for the people of the world to live together peacefully. Hopefully, by presenting this history and reminding the world of what can happen when such ideologies take control, the phrase “Never Again” will be heard around the world.