Remembering Kristallnacht
Synagogue in Hanover, Germany, set ablaze during the Kristallnacht pogrom On 9-10 November 1938, Germany and Austria were swept by vicious pogroms against Jews and Jewish property. The day was called “Kristallnacht” (crystal night) for the way it covered the streets with broken glass. It signalled a shift in Nazi anti-semitism beyond legal and administrative discrimination, and towards mass, violent assaults on the Jewish population. The pretext for the rioting was the assassination of a German diplomat in Paris by Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish-Jewish refugee. Grynszpan shot the junior...