This article appeared in the Nov. 17, 2005, Jewish Advocate.

Multidimensional, collaborative efforts recall the “Night of Broken Glass”

BY SUSIE DAVIDSON

On Nov. 7, 1938, Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish Jewish teenager, shot and killed Third Secretary Ernst vom Rath at the German Embassy in Paris. He had immigrated there following a pre-war roundup of Polish Jews living in Germany, and the subsequent deportation of his parents to the Polish frontier. An act of vengeance rooted in agony, it was superseded two days later by retaliatory terror unparalleled in modern Jewish history.

Over the night of Nov. 9-10, the Nazis unleashed an anti-Jewish pogrom in Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland in response to the assassination of vom Rath. When it was over, 200 synagogues, Jewish cemeteries and institutions were burned, 7,500 Jewish stores were looted and destroyed, and between 30,000 and 35,0000 Jewish males were sent to the Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen concentration camps. Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass,” proved to be the preeminently ominous sign of things to come.

At the Sachar International Building at Brandeis University this past Wednesday, students, scholars and members of the public held a commemoration that began with a 15-minute memorial service. Sponsors of the event, which was spearheaded by Brandeis students and Holocaust Remembrance Committee co-Presidents Elana Levi and Joe Hedaya, and Sharon Rivo of the National Jewish Film Archive, included Hillel, the Center for German and European Studies, the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, and the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry.

"Rosenzweig's Freedom," a 1998 film about neo-Nazism in Germany by Liliane Targownik, a resident scholar at the Brandeis Women's Research Center, preceded a discussion moderated by Targownik and Sabine von Mering, Executive Director of the Center for German and European Studies. A candle lighting ceremony between students and faculty members followed.

“The program was both educational and inspirational, reinforcing the importance of the day of Kristallnacht,” said Hedaya. “Elana and I feel that by involving others, we are able to truly instill the importance of remembering the Holocaust. This is crucial in raising genocide awareness.”

At Faneuil Hall, the JCRC, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and the New England Holocaust Memorial held a community commemoration that included a video presentation of Kristallnacht photos; Makhela: The South Area Solomon Schechter Choir; remarks by Holocaust survivor Rosian Zerner; and a candle lighting and Kaddish at the New England Holocaust Memorial.

Zerner spoke of the travesties surrounding the international collaboration that brought about Kristallnacht. Jews, she said, were not only blamed for the devastation, but were actually forced to pay the German government over one billion marks in fines and damages for the death of vom Rath, as well as $6 million in insurance money due the Jewish community to cover the broken glass and other destruction.

“Kristallnacht was the spark that created the myth of acceptance that the annihilation of Jews was for the greater good, no matter where they lived, their nationality, or who they were,” said Zerner. “Tragically, far too many acted on this lie, became willing executioners and torturers, and in the process buried their own humanity.

“Kristallnacht is all about cruelty, compliance and silence,” she continued. “It is about what can happen to a society, to a country, to many countries, to the collective conscience of our world. And about what can happen to Jews if they are not aware, vigilant and empowered.”