Kristallnacht: 75 years ago in pictures

Obama: 75th Kristallnacht anniversary a reminder of what silence in face of hatred can bring

Source: Jerusalem Post

US President Barack Obama marked the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht on Friday, saying that the 1938 pogrom in which Nazis burned synagogues and murdered Jews across Germany serves as an example of what silence in the face of hatred can bring.

"I join millions of people in the United States and around the world in marking the 75th anniversary of the tragedy of Kristallnacht – “the Night of Broken Glass,” Obama stated.

"On November 9 and 10, 1938, Nazi paramilitaries marched under the cover of darkness throughout the towns and villages of Germany and Austria smashing Jewish storefronts, arresting Jewish men en masse, ransacking Jewish homes, burning books and littering the streets with the parchment of sacred Judaic texts," the US president stated.

"Throughout the two-day wave of violence, hundreds of synagogues and thousands of businesses owned by Jews were destroyed or damaged. At least 91 Jews were killed, while another 30,000 were sent to concentration camps," he continued.



Read more: Obama: 75th Kristallnacht anniversary a reminder of what silence in face of hatred can bring

Kristallnacht anniversary still haunting for child refugee from Nazi mobs

One afternoon, five-year-old John Izbicki woke from a nap to find the streets outside his Berlin home curiously quiet and empty. As the trams had stopped and there was no one to be seen, he decided to indulge himself and began skipping down the road with three dangerous words on his lips. "I'm a Jew," he shouted. "I'm a Jew."

The sense of liberation afforded him by what turned out to be an air-raid drill was, he remembers, quite spectacular.

"There was I thinking, as a wee lad, 'This is marvellous – I can now say I'm a Jew without fear'."

Less amused was his father, who rushed out of his haberdashery shop to scoop up his son and ask him if he was trying to get them arrested.

"That," says Izbicki, "was the beginning for me."

Three years later – and 75 years ago tomorrow – Izbicki stood on the balcony of his home on Invalidenstrasse and watched as the pogrom that would come to be known as Kristallnacht – the night of broken glass – gathered its hateful momentum. It was the morning after his eighth birthday and the mob beneath him had turned its attention to the Jewish-owned leatherware shop opposite. Very soon its window, like thousands of others that day and night, had been smashed.

more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/08/kristallnacht-anniversary-germany-child-refugees-nazis?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

Antisemitism on the rise, says European survey

Poll of 6,000 Jewish people in eight EU member states finds three-quarters say problem has escalated over last five years

A survey of discrimination and hate crimes against Jewish people in Europe, released to mark the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht (night of broken glass), suggests that antisemitism is on the rise, with three-quarters of those polled reporting an increase in the last five years and growing fears over online abuse and hate speech.

Two-thirds of those polled for the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) felt antisemitism was a problem, 76% thought the situation was getting worse and that antisemitism had increased over the last five years, and 46% said they worried about being verbally assaulted or harassed in public because they were Jewish.

A third were worried about being physically attacked, and 57% said they had heard or seen someone claim over the last year that the Holocaust was a myth or had been exaggerated.

Almost 6,000 Jewish people in eight EU member states – Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Sweden and the UK – took part in the survey. The eight nations are home to 90% of the EU's Jewish population.

more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/08/antisemitism-rise-european-survey?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

Related:

Fearful of anti-Semitism, 22% of European Jews hide identity

Almost a quarter of respondents in a major survey of Jews from nine European countries said they avoid visiting places and wearing symbols that identify them as Jews for fear of anti-Semitism.

Fear of wearing a kippah and other identifiably Jewish items was especially strong in Sweden, where 49 percent of 800 respondents said they refrained from such actions, in a survey conducted this year among more than 5,100 Jews by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.


In France, 40 percent of approximately 1,200 Jews said they avoided wearing such items in public, followed by Belgium with 36 percent, according to preliminary results from the survey, obtained by JTA.
In total, 22 percent of respondents said they avoided “Jewish events or sites” because of safety concerns.

“The results show that a majority of European Jews are experiencing a rise in anti-Semitism,” Gert Weisskirchen, a former representative of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe for fighting anti-Semitism, said Tuesday at a conference in Kiev.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/fearful-of-anti-semitism-22-of-european-jews-hide-identity/

From the archive: Kristallnacht

Seventy-five years ago the Nazi government unleashed the Kristallnacht pogrom against German Jews

On the night of 9 November 1938, the Nazi government coordinated a wave of attacks in Germany and Austria, on synagogues, Jewish-owned businesses and homes.

This was Kristallnacht - the night of broken glass. Over two days some 90 Jews were killed in an orgy of violence, while around 30,000 Jewish males were rounded up for deportation to concentration camps. Over 1,000 synagogues were burned or damaged.

The Manchester Guardian's first reports of the pogrom appeared on 11 November 1938.



more: http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/from-the-archive-blog/2013/nov/08/kristallnacht-guardian-archive-1938