Temple B’nai Israel of Laconia Kristallnacht Commemoration Nov. 9

LACONIA —The Lakes Region community is invited to join with the members of Temple B’nai Israel and prominent civic and faith leaders to commemorate “The Night of Broken Glass,” also known as Kristallnacht, to unite in solidarity against antisemitism, racism, hatred, and intolerance. The program will take place on the steps of the temple located at 210 Court Street on Wednesday, Nov. 9, at 5:30 p.m.

Kristallnacht occurred on Nov. 9–10, 1938, when Nazi leaders unleashed a series of pogroms against the Jewish population following the assassination of a German foreign official who had been shot two days earlier by a 17-year-old Polish Jew distraught over the deportation of his family from Germany. The Nazi Party leadership had been assembled in Munich to commemorate the 1923 attempt by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party to overthrow the German government on this date. Upon learning of the assassination, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels suggested to the convened “Nazi Old Guard” that “World Jewry had conspired to commit the assassination.” He announced that "the Führer has decided that … demonstrations should not be prepared or organized by the Party, but insofar as they erupt spontaneously, they are not to be hampered with.” Specific orders went out to local police that the "spontaneous" rioters (led by Hitler Youth and Storm Troopers) were to take no measures endangering non-Jewish German life or property or foreigners, even Jewish foreigners. The riots broke out across Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia with orders that police officials should arrest as many Jews as local jails could hold, preferably young, healthy men.

Over the next 48 hours, violent mobs destroyed hundreds of synagogues, burning or desecrating Jewish religious artifacts along the way. Acting on orders from Gestapo headquarters, police officers and firefighters did nothing to prevent the destruction. Approximately 7,500 Jewish-owned businesses, homes, and schools were plundered, and 91 Jews were murdered. An additional 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Nazi officials immediately claimed that the Jews themselves were to blame for the riots, and a fine of one billion reichsmarks (about $400 million at 1938 rates) was imposed on the German Jewish community.

Kristallnacht was a turning point in the history of the Third Reich, marking the shift from antisemitic rhetoric and legislation to the violent, aggressive anti-Jewish measures that would culminate with the Holocaust.

Read more about this critical time in history at encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kristallnacht.