Kristallnacht: The Start of it All

 By Sherri Boomershine

In writing my new book about the Kinder Transport, I was amazed at how many of my friends and relatives know someone who was a child on the Kinder Transport. I want to capture those stories while those children, now in their eighties and nineties, are still alive. One single event led parents in Germany, Austria, and other Nazi-occupied countries to give their children to strangers in England in order to save the children’s lives. That one event: Kristallnacht.

On the night of November 9–10, 1938, Nazi German leaders unleashed a nationwide anti-Jewish riot. This event is known as Kristallnacht, often referred to as the “Night of Broken Glass.” What led up to the fateful two nights when countless Jews were sent to concentration camps and thousands of Jewish schools, synagogues, and businesses were destroyed by fire? Antisemitic sentiments had been steadily growing since 1933 when Adolph Hitler rose to power, blaming the Jews for a weak economy, so it only took a single spark to set off the fire.

On November 7, 1938, Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old Jewish refugee living in Paris, walked into his city’s German embassy and assassinated Nazi diplomat Ernst vom Rath. Grynszpan had just learned that his Polish-Jewish parents, along with thousands of other Jews, had been herded into boxcars and deported from Germany. His actions would later be used as justification for Kristallnacht. Grynszpan had emigrated to France two years earlier when he walked into the German Embassy on Rue de Lille in search of the German ambassador. Since the ambassador was out on his daily walk, Grynszpan was brought in to meet with diplomat Ernst vom Rath. Pulling out his revolver, Grynszpan fired five times at vom Rath and shouted, “You are a filthy kraut, and here in the name of 12,000 persecuted Jews is your document!” Vom Rath died two days later.

Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels immediately launched a vast pogrom against the Jews living within Germany’s borders. He sent a teletype message to state police stations and secret service headquarters with detailed instructions on organizing and executing a massive attack on Jewish properties. Goebbels ordered the burning of Jewish houses of worship, businesses, and homes. He ordered the storm troopers to arrest as many Jews as the prisons could hold—“especially the rich ones”—and to prepare the concentration camps for their arrivals. Firemen were told to do nothing to stop the blazes unless the fires began to threaten non-Jewish-owned properties.

Starting in the late hours of the night of November 9, 1938, and continuing well into the next day, Nazis in Germany and Austria torched approximately 1,000 synagogues and vandalized thousands of Jewish homes, schools and businesses. Nearly 100 Jews were murdered during the violence, and approximately 30,000 were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Following the night of terror, the shattered windows of vandalized Jewish businesses littered the sidewalks of Germany and Austria, which led to the rampage being known as Kristallnacht, German for “crystal night.”

A week following the assassination in Paris, vom Rath’s coffin draped with the Nazi swastika flag was paraded through the streets of Dusseldorf as thousands of mourners raised their arms in salute of the murdered diplomat. Grynszpan was transferred from prison to prison in France until he was extradited to Germany where he was incarcerated in a concentration camp. https://www.history.com/articles/kristallnacht-75-years-ago

Ruth Winkelmann, now in her nineties, remembers that night, "Our father took me and my little sister in his arms that night, and said, 'this is the beginning of a very difficult time, and we'll try to live through it.' On our way to school, we saw broken shop windows and shards of glass lying in the streets. And then we saw a shop where someone had painted the word 'Jew,' and smeared on a star of David. In retrospect, I became a grown-up on that day. The pogrom night took away my childhood."  https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-46152567

Sherri Boomershine is a woman of faith who loves all things foreign whether it’s food, culture, or language. A former French teacher and flight attendant, her passion is traveling to the settings of her books, sampling the food, and visiting the sites. She visited a Netherlands concentration camp for A Song for Her Enemies, and Paris art museums for What Hides beyond the Walls. Sherri lives with her husband Mike, her high school sweetheart, whom she married fifty-five years later. As an author and editor, she hopes her books will entertain and challenge readers to live large and connect with their Savior. Join, chat, and share with her on social media. Newsletter Facebook Twitter Instagram Website

A Song for Her Enemies

Tamar Kaplan is a budding soprano with the Harlaam Opera company. Her future looks bright, despite the presence of the German soldiers guarding Haarlem. But when Nazi soldiers close down the opera company, families start disappearing in the middle of the night, and Jews are stripped of their freedoms, Tamar realizes her brother Seth was right about her naiveté. She joins the resistance, her blond hair and light features making it easy for her come and go under the watchful eyes of the German guards. Tamar becomes Dr. Daniel Feldman’s assistant, as they visit families hiding out in forests and hovels, tending to their health needs. But when she returns home to find her parents gone and the family store looted, she and Daniel must go into hiding. As they cling to the walls of an alley, Tamar recognizes a familiar face—that of Neelie Visser, the neighbor, who beckons to them to follow her. Can she trust this Gentile woman who talks about God as if he’s standing next to her? https://bit.ly/40Yucjv