Kristallnacht Summary

Kristallnacht was an attack that the Nazis conducted against the Jews on the night of November 9, 1938 - November 10, 1938.  The Nazis went throughout Germany, damaging and destroying Jewish homes and businesses.  The Nazis destroyed Jewish synagogues (the Jewish people’s place of worship), looted the Jewish homes and businesses, and sometimes beat the Jews that were in those buildings.  This event was called “Kristallnacht” because of all the glass that was shattered that night, “Kristallnacht” meaning “Night of broken glass”.  

Kristallnacht started because of a teenage boy named Herschel Grynszpan, who went to the German embassy in Paris and shot a German official, although he was intending to kill the German Ambassador to France, but he was not there at the time.  Herschel was angry at the time and that is why he killed the official.  Herschel was mad because his family got their possessions taken away and his father’s store got taken away.  Once almost everything was taken away from them, his family’s Polish citizenships got taken away, along with 17,000 other Jews in Poland.  Once that occurred, the Grynszpans were forced out of Poland and were not allowed to return.  This is what triggered Herschel to do what he did to Ernst vom Rath.  Herschel Grynszpan shot him on November 7, 1938, which was two days before Kristallnacht.  Rath was severely wounded and died two days on later on November 9, giving the Nazis a reason to attack the Jews.

Another reason this event happened was partially because of Hitler’s thinkings.  Hitler did not like foreigners and the Jews were considered foreigners.  Hitler wanted to find a way to scare the Jews and later on, conduct a massive attack (which turned out to be the Holocaust).  Kristallnacht was one event that scared the Jews, a lot of Jews fled the country and some Jews were worried about what was going to happen in the future.  Hitler absolutely hated foreigners, so he wanted to get rid of the Jews.  He did not want the Jews living in his country, but instead of deporting the Jews, Hitler just set up a plan that killed A LOT of Jewish people in the concentration camps.

In Kristallnacht, the Jews were obviously the victims and the Nazis were the perpetrators.  Although the German people (non-Jews) did not have to be involved in Kritallnacht, a lot of the Germans got involved.  Some Germans robbed their Jewish neighbors when they got a chance, some helped the Jews when the Jewish people were in a bad situation, and Germans also just stood by and watched Kritallnacht happen.  

During Kristallnacht: 90+ Jews died, about 30,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps, 101 synagogues were destroyed, and 7,500 Jewish businesses were destroyed.

Kristallnacht was a terrible event towards the Jews and ironically, the Jews were fined 1 billion dollars to pay for the damages in Kristallnacht.  Kristallnacht was believed to be the start of the Holocaust and after Kristallnacht, laws were created that limited the amount of things that Jewish people could do.

Ezra Adalheim

November 10, 1938

I just woke up from a dreadful night of sleep.  Last night was probably the worst night I had ever lived to see.  There were Nazi soldiers everywhere, attacking my Jewish friends and vandalizing their homes.  I felt bad for them.  My acquaintance, Jacob, got killed in the riot that the German soldiers participated in.  That whole event got me very depressed.  I can’t believe that something like that would happen to a specific group of people (Jews).  I was asleep at about midnight and I woke up due to a loud smash just outside my house.  It was my neighbor’s windows getting drilled by stones.  I couldn’t bear to watch those terrible things occur to people I know and even others that I didn’t know.   I was too scared to do anything about it.  My wife and I were in our bedroom, looking out the window, and we saw a bunch of other Germans in uniform going into houses and businesses, and they threw stones at the windows, making them shatter.  Luckily my family came from a Catholic religion.  I am so happy that our house was untouched in the attack of the Nazis, but unfortunately a lot of people [Jews] were harmed in the attack.  A man I know named Abram was beaten during the attack (he lives two houses away from me).  I witnessed him get beaten right in front of my eyes.  At that time, I was so afraid, I didn’t know what to do.  I just ran back to my house, into my bedroom and I just sat on my bed, listening to the terrible noises of the German attack on the Jews.  Right now, I am regretting not helping Abram when he was taking blows by the German soldiers.  I should have done something, anything that could help the Jews that lived near me in the riot.  Well, today I have to help clean up the streets of Germany so there isn’t any more glass remaining (German orders), so I guess that’s it for this journal entry.

Abraham Nimrod

(upstander in Kristallnacht)

November 9, 1938

I remember making my family dinner with my wife on an average November day.  It was pretty cold outside and it was very comfortable when we finished dinner and feasted right next to the fire.  That was one of the best dinners I had ever made.  I had cleaned up my plate, put it in the sink and went to my living room to lay down and continue to read a book I had gotten a week before.  At around midnight, as I was trying my best to fall asleep, with my eyes half open.  I heard someone scream at the top of their lungs and I think it was a women, although I am not completely sure.  I heard a loud bang coming from my neighbors house and I immediately thought, "I hope they're okay."  My wife sat next to me, frightened. There were loud screams of Jews that lived in my neighborhood.  I was not going to let this go down without a fight.  I got up out of bed and ran down the stairs, outside, and to the house next to mine.  I noticed four fairly young men talking to each other and banging on my neighbors house.  I ran to the back of the house and knocked on the window.  My friend Herschel saw me and opened the window.  I was then ready to help him.  The Nazis got past the wooden door and it was time to go.  The Nazis were talking to each other and searching around the house for valuables to take.  I felt bad for Herschel and I wasn't going to let this happen.  At that moment, I got up and grabbed a broom that was in the kitchen.  I whacked two Nazis across the head and they both fell to the ground.  I hoped that they would be hurt and would then be unable to continue to vandalize my friend’s house.  The Nazis were not going to do this to Herschel and his family on my watch.  The other two came at me and I punched one in the face.  Herschel got on the other one's back and gave the young boy a few blows to the head.  The young man fell to the ground after about six blows to the head.  We both let the boy lay on the ground there, motionless.  He was still breathing, but we both thought he was at least unconscious.  As soon as all of the Nazis regained their strength to get up, they ran as fast as they can out the doorway.  I felt like a hero and Herschel said "Thank you!" to me and I nodded and walked out the door and went back to my house and back to bed.   While lying in bed, I noticed the sheets getting wet.  I lifted them up to see a big gash in my thigh.  I knew that one of the Nazis must have got me in the thigh.  At that time, I needed to wrap it up in something.  I wrapped my thigh and went to bed.  Luckily my house was unharmed and I was able to go back to bed a couple of hours later, when nobody was in the streets and all of the Nazis were gone.  My wife and kids were unable to go to bed, since they were still shocked about the whole attack planned by the Nazis.  That was the craziest night I had ever lived through and I am so happy that it is over.  

Joseph Goebells

Joseph Goebells

November 9, 1938
           November 9 was like any other day for me.  I remember receiving the last of my birthday gifts, since it was about ten or eleven days after my birthday.  It was my 41st birthday.  I was just going over the plan I had set up for that night with my fellow Nazi soldiers.  After all, I was in charge.  I was Hitler’s chief in propaganda.  I was the one who planned the attack, in which we used the murder as an excuse for it.  About 24 hours after my acquaintance, Ernst vom Rath was shot.  I suggested that all of the Nazi party and even other Germans to take part in throwing rocks at Jewish buildings and vandalizing them in any way possible.  All of the other Nazis thought it was a good idea and I knew at that point that it was going to turn out good.  All of this was discussed at a mandatory meeting I had set up for all Nazis to go to and participate in.  At midnight on November 9, 1938, we all set out for a riot that would eventually be known as ‘Kristallnacht’.  I was pretty proud of leading an attack that worked very well and caused many Jews to flee Germany.  I fired stones at windows, making glass shatter everywhere.  I seemed heartless; I did all of these actions without feeling any sympathy for the Jews, because I don’t like them.  In fact, I hated them and still do now.  I remember lighting a fire inside one old man’s synagogue, which burnt it to the ground and he just sat on the curb, crying.  I felt happy, although I realize that I did a terrible thing.  The attack that I had planned lasted for the whole night into the next morning, for hours and hours.  I think that during that attack, we scared the Jews a lot.  I now regret what I planned only a little bit.

May 1, 1945           

    I am starting to regret everything I have done in my life.  I think it is time to take my own life.  The house I live in is crazy, my kids, wife, and I, are stressed out everyday and I do not want to live this way.  At eight o’clock, my family is going to go to one of my personal doctors and I am going to have him perform a special operation. He is going to knock my kids and wife unconscious and kill them, and then he will kill me.  So, I guess this is my last journal entry.  Goodbye.

                                       

Ernest Heppner

(Victim)

November 9, 1938

    I remember it being only 5:15 in the evening.  I was very nervous at that time.  The anxiousness flowed over me for the past 24 hours.  After I heard the news about the shooting in the German embassy in Paris, I was worried, mainly because the teenage boy that shot the German official was a Jew…just like me.  That one night will stay in my memories, and the things I witnessed on November 9th to November 10th will remain crystal clear.  I did my daily routine that day. I came home from a dreadful day at school, like usual.  I was very glad that the bell had rung and I was able to leave the place where I was unwanted by the individuals that surrounded me. Later on, I arrived at home and washed the dishes, in which my father made me do every day or two, especially if he had a long day at work.   I would also continue to finish my homework, in which I was pleased with.  Not having many friends sort of made me enjoy doing my homework.  After all, I had to get work done that day as usual, since I wished to go to college the following year.  It was a typical Wednesday.  I had just finished writing a two-page essay that was due the next day and I was getting ready to go to bed.  But once that clock struck 11:17 pm, my life was about to change.  It was a calm night, but I suddenly started to hear yelling out on the streets and I heard very loud, unfamiliar uproar.  I glanced out the window of my bedroom, only to see a German teen, roughly around my age, participating in what seemed like an insane event.  The teen fired a stone he had picked up on the side of the street at my window.  It was hurdling towards me at a high speed, so I instinctively flopped on the ground, knowing that there was most likely more to the absurd occurrences.  I carefully walked down the stairs, making my presence practically unknown.   I peered over the stair railing only to see Nazi storm troopers stealing many of my family’s precious valuables.  My father was yelling at the young men that had barged into the house, “Get out of here you rotten sons of bitches!”  The German teens ignored my father and just continued to loot various items.  My father even took a few blows to the head because of what he was bellowing to the two men.  I watched for a few minutes from behind the stair railing, knowing to stay silent.  I did not want to get involved with this.  That night was bazaar.  From the corner of my eye, I noticed my sister and mother looking at what was happening from behind the kitchen doorway, crying.  They remained silent, but it was not hard to tell that they were ridiculously upset.  Right after I looked at my sister, what seemed like a million rocks rocketed through the five windows that were on the two sides of my living room.  My father and I dove to the ground at the same time and my mother and sister shrieked.  We were all in the middle of a nightmare that night.  I remember eyeing the clock, probably about a half hour after this occurrence started…11:51 pm.  That time was the one of the worst moments of my life.  At 11:52 pm, I sneaked around with a few Nazis (that did not see me), only to see my family’s synagogue burned to the ground.  At that moment, I did not feel complete.  What kind of people would do such a heartless act like that?  I did not let my emotions get the best of me.  I knew that if I said something to them, I would be brutally hurt, arrested, or even killed.  I was extremely happy that the torture was over, that there was no more harm and no sounds of shattering glass.  My father was extremely angry the following day, and I did not know why.  I asked him why he was so angry and he told me he had to pay a fair amount of money, since the Jewish people in Germany got fined one billion marks to pay for the damage in the event.  Later on in the month, my father was able to get only two tickets to leave the country, and right away he gave one to my mother.  Who was going to get the other one?  I suggested that I should get it because of the bullying I had to face.  I also did not want to live in a country that would allow such things to happen.  My father handed me the ticket.  

Leaving Germany

Three months later, my whole family went to the ship terminals.  A kind man led my mother and I to the ship that was on the tickets.  My mother and I boarded the ship and sat down towards the back, so we were able to say our final goodbyes.  This was the saddest time of my life.  I felt selfish and I suddenly got a feeling of guilt rise over me.  I chose to take the final ticket, leaving the rest of my family helpless.  I knew that something bad was going to happen in the future.  Someone had told me a few weeks before I fled that the Nazis did that to warn the Jews about the future.  My family was stuck there in Breslau, Germany.  The motors of the ship started turning and the ship slowly started to slowly started to move away from Germany.  I screamed, “Goodbye, I love you!” to the rest of my family.  Those were the last words that I said to them and I never saw my family again (died in concentration camps).