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Berenbaum, Michael. "Kristallnacht." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica,

22 Sept. 2008. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.
Kristallnacht began the evening of November 9, 1938. In some places the attacks lasted
for days. During Kristallnacht Jewish synagogues, businesses, and homes were broken
into and burned. These attacks were well organized by Nazi officials. The police were
told that this would happen and were not ordered not to get in the way. Their job was to
arrest any Jews who were out. Fire companies were also told that this would happened
and were to simply watch while buildings, even synagogues, burned and were not to
interfere unless a nearby Aryan property was threatened by the fire. The end result was
that more than 1,000 synagogues were burned and damaged. 7,500 Jewish business were
broken into and ransacked. Other Jewish buildings such as hospitals, homes, schools, and
cemeteries were vandalized. Around 30,000 Jewish males were arrested and
concentration camps had to be enlarged to accommodate the mass new prisoners. So
many windows were broken that the cost of the window glass was millions of
Reichsmarks but Jews were unable to get compensation from insurance companies to
cover the damage. The whole Jewish community was fined one billion Reichsmarks to
teach them a lesson. Kristallnacht means night of broken glass or crystal night. It got
its name from the large amount of glass that was broken during the night. More
symbolically is showed the final shattering of Jewish existence in Germany,
(Berenbaum). From then on Jews would never be able to survive in Germany because of
the oppression from the Nazis.

"Kristallnacht." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial

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Council, 29 Jan. 2016. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.
The events of Kristallnacht were said to have started in response to the assassination of
Ernst vom Rath, who was a German emnassy official in Paris, France. He was shot in the
head on November 7, 1938 by Herschel Grynszpan, Polish Jew. Grynszpan was angry
because a few days before, German authorities had thrown thousands of Polish Jews
living in Germany out of the Reich. His parents who had been residents in Germany since
1911 was also thrown out with other Polish Jews. The displaced Jews were originally
denied entry to their native home of Poland. They were stuck in a refugee camp near the
town of Zbaszyn close to the border of Germany and Poland. Grynszpan was already
living in Paris illegally and in desperation sought revenge for the treatment of his family
by going to the German embassy and shooting the official that was supposed to help him.
Two days after the shooting vom Rath died November 9, 1938. This happened to also be
the anniversary of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch which was an important day for National
Socialists. The Nazi Party decided to use this to their advantage to start a night of antisematic actions. They announced that "the Fhrer 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." (Kristallnacht).

History.com Staff. "Kristallnacht." History.com. A&E Television Networks, 01 Jan. 2009. Web.
30 Mar. 2016.
The American response to the attacks during Kristallnacht was very relaxed. On
November 15, 1938 Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was the current American president, in
response to Kristallnact, told the media, he harshly denounced the rising tide of anti-

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Semitism and violence in Germany." There were policies and restrictions that stopped
European Jews from coming to the United States to escape persecution. There were such
strict restrictions because people were fearful that Nazis would be able settle in the
United States legally. There were also various officials in the US state department who
had anti-Semitic views. Such as Breckinridge Long who served from 1881 to 1958 and
created policies that prevent European Jews from obtaining visas and even lasted when
the United States entered WWII.
Kristallnact also served as a wake-up call to German Jews proving the Nazi antiSemitism would only get worse and was not going to go away. This prompted many Jews
to start planning their escape from their home. Two such Jews were Arthur Spanier and
Albert Lewkowitz. They both wanted to escape to America. Spanier was a librarian at the
Prussian State Library and a teacher at the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies in Berlin,
Germany. He was sent to a concentration camp after Kristallnacht but was later released
after getting a job offer from a college in Cincinnati, Ohio. He applied for a visa but did
not get a response. He found out from the University that since he was a librarian the
United States State Department rules visas could not be given to an academic in a
secondary educational position. Lewkowitz was a philosophy professor and was granted a
visa. The pair traveled to the Netherlands but were stuck when Germany invaded. They
were taken to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where Spanier lost his life.
Lewkowitz was released in 1944 because of prisoner exchange. Shortly after he settled in
Palestine.

Wiesel, Ellie. Night. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, a Division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux,

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2006. Print.
Night is a memoir of Elie Wiesels childhood during the holocaust. He was close to an
outcast Moshie the Beadle. He looked up to him and he helped him to study Kabballah.
One day Moshie was taken away because from their village. He barely escaped and came
back with terrifying stories. He tried to warn everyone that they would befall the same
fate if they did not leave. No one chose to listen to him and ignored his warnings.
Many more incidents against Jews happened such as Kristallnacht, Elie Wiesel urged his
father to get them visas to leave the country. He refused because he said that he was too
old to pack up and start over again. He had a leader position in the town and probably did
not want to leave it. Regardless they decided to stay even after many warning signs that
there home was no longer safe for them.
Another warning sign came when they were rounded up and put on train cars like cattle.
A lady on the train also tried to tell them that they were awaiting a fire. No one still
believed her. Elie probably regretted for the rest of his life ignoring these things.
Kristallnacht means Night of Broken Glass. This relates to the title of the book which is
Night. One reason that this book is called night is because it is the darkest time of the day
and the most horrifying things happened and went unnoticed by most of the world. This
was the same for Kristallnacht it occurred in the darkness of the night and was awful but
was cast into the shadows and ignored by the world.