80 years of 'Crystal Night': how the Holocaust began

On the night of 9 on 10 in November of 1938, Jewish pogroms took place in Berlin and other German cities, as well as in the occupied Sudetenland and annexed Austria.

Фото: Depositphotos

Later, these events were called “Kristallnacht” - because of the glass fragments of thousands of shop windows broken in shops and stores owned by Jews, writes “Currently,".

Officially, the pogroms were explained by the response to the murder in Paris of a German diplomat Ernst von Rath. He passed away from bullets fired by Jewish refugee Herschel Grynszpan. But historians have proved that the pogrom was being prepared long before the death of the diplomat, and the Nazis were just waiting for a reason to use violence against the Jews for the first time on a massive scale. Goebbels wanted to make a similar pogrom back in the 1936 year, but the implementation of the plan was postponed because of the Olympic Games in Berlin.

By that time, the rights of Jews in Germany had already been seriously restricted - for example, they were forbidden to marry with the Germans and wield weapons. For violations of the new laws they were sent to the camps.

Members of the SA and SS, as well as “spontaneous avengers,” destroyed shops, restaurants, synagogues, apartments and cemeteries. They beat women and arrested men. At least 400 people died that night, including those who committed suicide and those who died from injuries.

Of the 30 thousand arrested during Kristallnacht, two thirds were distributed to the camps of Dachau, Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald. Dozens were shot, hundreds died trying to escape, but most were released - the Jews signed an obligation to leave Germany and transfer all their property to the state.

The events of Kristallnacht prompted many Jews who remained free to emigrate. Before the start of World War II, 300 thousand Jews left Germany. Emigrating in those years was not so easy: many states simply refused to accept refugees.

The day after the pogrom, Hitler ordered the complete exclusion of Jews from the German economy. Participants in Kristallnacht were accused of destroying property - for example, Hermann Goering said that he “would prefer that 200 Jews were killed, but not that valuables were destroyed.” However, the damage from the pogrom was compensated by the Jews themselves: they were fined more than a billion Reichsmarks ($357 million at the 1938 exchange rate).

Read also on ForumDaily:

Finding Jewish relatives will be easier: the largest database in the world has been created

Do you want more important and interesting news about life in the USA and immigration to America? — support us donate! Also subscribe to our page Facebook. Select the “Priority in display” option and read us first. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our РєР ° РЅР ° Р »РІ Telegram  and Instagram- there is a lot of interesting things there. And join thousands of readers ForumDaily New York — there you will find a lot of interesting and positive information about life in the metropolis.