84th anniversary of Kristallnacht ("The Night of Broken Glass") -- 3 articles

[Behind the Aegis]

Unseen Kristallnacht photos published 84 years after Nazi pogrom

Harrowing, previously unseen images from 1938’s Kristallnacht pogrom against German and Austrian Jews have surfaced in a photograph collection donated to Israel’s Yad Vashem memorial, the organisation said on Wednesday.

One shows a crowd of smiling, well-dressed middle-aged German men and women standing casually as a Nazi officer smashes a storefront window. In another, brownshirts carry heaps of Jewish books, presumably for burning. Another image shows a Nazi officer splashing petrol on the pews of a synagogue before it is set alight.

Yad Vashem, a Holocaust memorial centre, released the photographs on the 84th anniversary of Kristallnacht, also known as the Night of Broken Glass. Mobs of Germans and Austrians attacked, looted and burned Jewish shops and homes, destroyed 1,400 synagogues, killed 92 Jews and sent another 30,000 to concentration camps.


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Newly discovered photos show Nazi Kristallnacht up close


This photo released by Yad Vashem, World Holocaust Remembrance Center, shows German Nazis carry Jewish books, presumably for burning, during Kristallnacht intake most likely in the town of Fuerth, Germany on Nov. 10, 1938. The photos were taken by Nazi photographers during the pogrom in the city of Nuremberg and the nearby town of Fuerth. They wound up in the possession of a Jewish American serviceman who served in Germany during World War II. His descendants,donated the album to Yad Vashem. (Yad Vashem via AP)

Harrowing, previously unseen images from 1938's Kristallnacht pogrom against German and Austrian Jews have surfaced in a photograph collection donated to Israel's Yad Vashem memorial, the organization said Wednesday.

One shows a crowd of smiling, well-dressed middle-aged German men and women standing casually as a Nazi officer smashes a storefront window. In another, brownshirts carry heaps of Jewish books, presumably for burning. Another image shows a Nazi officer splashing gasoline on the pews of a synagogue before it’s set alight.

Yad Vashem — The World Holocaust Remembrance Center released the photographs on the 84th anniversary of the November pogrom also known as Kristallnacht, or “The Night of Broken Glass." Mobs of Germans and Austrians attacked, looted and burned Jewish shops and homes, destroyed 1,400 synagogues, killed 92 Jews and sent another 30,000 to concentration camps.

The violence is widely considered a starting point for the Holocaust, in which Nazi Germany murdered 6 million Jews.

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Kristallnacht survivors warn about antisemitism, hate speech

Holocaust survivors from around the world are warning about the reemergence of antisemitism as they mark the 84th anniversary on Wednesday of Kristallnacht — the “Night of Broken Glass” — when Nazis terrorized Jews throughout Germany and Austria.

In the campaign #ItStartedWithWords by the organization that handles claims on behalf of Jews who suffered under the Nazis, several Holocaust survivors have recounted on video how antisemitic speech led to actions that nearly saw the mass extermination of Jews in Europe in the last century.

Among them is 90-year-old Eva Szepesi, a survivor of the Auschwitz death camp.

“It started for me when I was 8 years old, and I could not understand why my best friends were shouting bad names at me,” she said.

Szepesi was shocked how her best friends could treat her like this, but soon the Jewish girl found herself fleeing from the Nazis before she was captured and deported to Auschwitz at age 12. Her parents and brother were murdered in Auschwitz.

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90 Jews murdered.
1400 synagogues and Jewish businesses vandalized or destroyed.
30,000 Jews sent to concentration camps.

It starts with words, but it doesn't always end there.

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."
--Anne Frank