The Holocaust was the most notorious atrocity of World War II, referring to the ethnic cleansing of Nazi Germany in World War II. The Nazis murdered nearly 6 million Jews in this ethnic cleansing, but many do not know exactly when the Holocaust began.
In fact, the Kristallnacht pogrom on the night of November 9, 1938, is considered the starting point of the massacre of the century. During that night, the Nazis burned more than 1,000 synagogues, destroyed countless Jewish homes, schools, and businesses, and killed nearly 100 Jews. After Kristallnacht, about 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps...
More than 1,000 synagogues in Germany and Austria were destroyed in the Kristallnacht massacre
cause
In the fall of 1938, Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old Polish Jew, had been living in France for several years. When he learned that the Nazis had exiled his parents from Hanover, Germany, to Poland, where Herschel was born, he eventually moved to Paris, France. In retaliation, on November 7, 1938, the emotional teenager shot Ernst vom Rath, then a German diplomat in Paris.
On the left is the murderer - Greenspan, on the right is the killed - Rat
Brewing
Two days later, Rath died of his wounds, and Hitler attended his funeral. The Nazi Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Joseph Goebels, immediately publicized the assassination, angering Hitler's supporters and setting off a wave of anti-Semitism.
Rath's coffin parade ceremony was marked with great fanfare
high tide
So, over the next 48 hours, under the anti-Semitic exhortations of Nazi officials, violent mobs destroyed thousands of synagogues, burning or desecrating Jewish religious artifacts along the way.
The Germans were passing by the looted Jewish shops
Having received orders from the Gestapo headquarters, all the police and firefighters did nothing to stop the destruction. In the end, some 7,500 Jewish businesses, homes, and schools were looted, 91 Jews were murdered, and 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps.
The police were just taking pictures of the smashed Jewish store
Nazi officials then claimed that the riots were caused by the Jews themselves and fined the German Jewish community 1 billion remarks (about $400 million at the 1938 exchange rate).
A crowd of well-dressed Germans watched as Nazi officers smashed the windows of the storefront
In fact, all Germans know what happened, but it is not true.
Self-summary
Eventually, Nazi Germany dubbed the event "Crystal Night" (or "Night of Broken Glass"), referring to the thousands of broken windows that later littered the streets, but this euphemism and even a little poetic expression fully expresses the brutality of the atrocity.
Kristallnacht was arguably a turning point in the history of the Third Reich, marking a shift from anti-Semitic rhetoric and legislation to violent, aggressive anti-Semitic measures that culminated in the Holocaust.
Jewish men taken to a concentration camp on November 10, 1938
On November 15, 1938, President Franklin M. Smith announced that President Franklin M. Smith Franklin D. Roosevelt read a statement to the media condemning the rising tide of anti-Semitism and violence in Nazi Germany, while also recalling his ambassador to Germany, Hugh Wilson.
Roosevelt was interviewed by CBS, MBS, NBS
Despite Roosevelt's condemnation of Nazi violence, he refused to relax the immigration restrictions of the time that prevented large numbers of German Jews from seeking refuge in the United States. Roosevelt said one reason for not letting up was the fear that Nazi infiltrators would legally settle in the United States.