On Sunday, the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Center commemorated the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, “the night of broken glass,” when Nazis swept through Jewish towns and neighborhoods throughout Germany burning homes and synagogues, destroying shops, and attacking Jews. Some 500 Jews were killed in the attacks. Over 30,000 were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Over 1,000 synagogues were burned down, and 7,000 Jewish businesses were destroyed or damaged. The term “Kristallnacht” refers to the shards of broken glass from the windows of shops and homes attacked by the Germans and Austrians who participated in the pogroms. Hundreds of survivors, veterans of World War II battles, IDF soldiers, and high school students gathered at Yad Vashem to hear survivors give their accounts of the devastation and terror of that night. Among the speakers was MK Dov Hanin (Hadash), who is the son of survivors. “Auschwitz wasnt made in one day,” he said at the commemoration. “There were many signs along the path.” The Kristallnacht pogroms were not “spontaneous,” he said, but were a planned event, designed as a milestone on the road to the destruction of European Jews, he said.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 17:06:50 +0000
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