Nazi Germany,
Wednesday 9th November 1938.
Antisemitic laws and decrees had been increasing from the time that the Nazis rose to power, with over 400 passed between 1933 and 1938. This frustration caused Herschel Grynszpan a seventeen-year-old Jewish teenager, on the 7th November 1938. to act out by shooting Von Rath. A German diplomat. The German press widely reported on the attack and vom Rath’s injuries.
Grynszpan stated that he shot vom Rath to bring the world’s attention to the plight of his family and other Jews affected during the Polen-aktion.
The Polen-aktion was the movement of thousands of Jews in October 1938 by the SS and German police who had been born in Poland but were living in Germany, back to Poland. When the Polish Jews arrived in Poland, Polish guards sent them back to Germany, and they were then stuck between the two borders without food or shelter in difficult conditions. One of the families involved in was the Gynszpans, whose son Hershchel lived in Paris.
On the 9th November, vom Rath died of his injuries.
Kristallnacht was born.
The November attacks which is now named Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass was a pogrom against the Jews living in Germany. November 9th , 1938 is widely seen as a violent turning point in Nazi germanys assault on the Jews. synagogues were set on fire, store windows were smashed and Jewish homes broken into in cities, towns and villages across the Third Reich. Fire fighters and police stood by, instructed only to intervene if neighboring “Aryan” property were endangered.
Precise figures are hard to ascertain, but it is estimated that about 100 Jews were killed in the attacks, at least 1,000 synagogues were burned down, and approximately 8,000 Jewish businesses were destroyed. Historians view Kristallnacht as a prelude to the Final Solution and the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust.
The November terror was instigated from the actions from the death of van rom. The attacks was sanctioned by Hitler and unleashed by Goebbels. The major perpetrators were the obvious Nazis — the black-booted SS, the brown-shirted SA, the idealistic Hitler Youth, the members of affiliated organizations proudly flaunting swastikas and party badges. This is what most people have in their minds as the image of the Third Reich.
