th
9
November
&
1938
th
10 ,

Across Germany and
German-occupied Austria

1,668 synagogues ransacked
Another 267 synagogues burned
7,500 storefronts of Jewish-owned
businesses shattered
Remembering the Past
Created by Kaitlyn Fridley
Background

 November 7th, 1938
 Paris, France
 Herschel Grynszpan, a Jewish student from Germany,
assassinates Ernst vom Rath, a German diplomat in
France
 Grynszpan’s family, among thousands of other Jews, were
deported to Poland from Germany by the Gestapo;
however, Poland would not accept the train cars full of
Jews, and Germany would not take them back
Background

 12,000 Jews were stranded at the border of Poland and
Germany, with little food, and poor conditions
 Grynszpan’s actions were to call attention to the matter on the
border; he wrote a postcard to his parents before the
assassination, which he kept in his pocket. On it, it read:
 “With God’s help.
My dear parents, I could not do otherwise, may God forgive
me, the heart bleeds when I hear of your tragedy and that of
the 12,000 Jews. I must protest so that the whole world hears
my protest, and that I will do.
Forgive me.”
Herschel Grynszpan
at the time of his
arrest
Background

 The death of vom Rath on November 9th, days after the
shooting, overlapped with the fifteenth anniversary of the
infamous Beer Hall Putsch, the greatest day on the Nazi
calendar
 Josef Goebbels, the Propaganda Minister, gave an
inflammatory speech in front of the beer hall in Munich,
outraged that a German Diplomat was assassinated by a
Jew
Background

 In his speech, Goebbels stated that it would not be
surprising if the Germans took the law into their own
hands and attacked the Jewish community. Such
“spontaneous outbursts,” would not be openly
organized by the Nazi party or the SA, but neither would
they be opposed or prevented
 Within hours, Kristallnacht was underway
Kristallnacht

 November 9-10, 1938
Bent Star of David
over the cupola
Zerrennerstrasse
synagogue
Pforzheim, Germany
Local residents
watch burning of
ceremonial hall at a
Jewish cemetery
Graz, Austria
The New York Times
The New York Times Excerpt

“No foreign propagandist bent upon
blackening Germany before the world could
outdo the tale of burnings and beatings, of
blackguardly assaults of defenseless and
innocent people, which disgraced that
country yesterday.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer
No other event in the history of German Jews
between 1933-1945 was so widely reported
while it was occurring
Boerneplatz Synagogue
Frankfurt Am Main, Germany

Last remaining wall of the
Boerneplatz synagogue

Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Burning Synagogue
 Memel, Germany
Synagogue of
Opava
Sudentenland, Germany
Remnants of the synagogue
in Aachen, Germany



 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and deported to
concentration camps- primarily Dachau, Sachsenhausen,
and Buchenwald
 Many arrested Jews were forced to march and humiliate
themselves publicly
 At the synagogue in Baden-Baden, the SS forced the Jews
to sing Nazi songs and read Mein Kampf instead of
reading the Torah before the Ark

Arrested Jews
awaiting deportation
to Dachau
 Baden-Baden, Germany

Arrested Jews
awaiting
deportation to
Sachsenhausen
 Zeven, Germany

Forced march of
arrested
Kristallnacht Jews
 Baden-Baden, Germany
German civilians watch the forced march
of arrested Jewish men

Baden-Baden, Germany
Roll call of newly
arrived prisoners,
mainly arrested
Kristallnacht Jews
Buchenwald concentration camp
Zeven, Germany

 German children watch
SS guards burn
religious objects from
the local synagogue

 Nazi officials inspect
Zerrenerstrasse
synagogue

Holy Ark demolished,
Seitenstetten Street
synagogue
Vienna, Austria
German civilians watch fireman put out a
burning home next to a burning synagogue

Oberramstadt, Germany
Ransacked interior
Hechingen synagogue
Damaged Lintel
above the Torah
Ark
Nentershausen, Germany
Bystanders survey broken
window of a Jewish storefront

Jewish-owned business,
vandalized storefront

Kristallnacht aftermath

Aftermath

November 9th & 10th, 1938
1,668 synagogues ransacked
Another 267 synagogues burned
7,500 storefronts of Jewish-owned businesses
shattered
Approximately 30,000 Jewish men arrested and
deported
91 Jewish civilians killed
And the world stood in
silence…