by Dr. Susanna Kokkonen
November 1938 was a watershed moment in the history of the world. At the time it may have seemed that there was just a localized persecution of Jews going on in Germany. But we know now that in November 1938 things came to a dangerous point.
I often speak about a fast car as a metaphor for November 1938. The car is traveling extremely fast. The driver sees a dangerous brink and tries to stop but the brakes do not work fast enough. There is no choice anymore. He drives over the edge.
The world did not know that in November 1938 it was already at the brink of a war. Less than a year later hostilities would start. But, in 1938, few people realized that Adolf Hitler was so dangerous, and he would not stop at burning synagogues.
Let us recall the events preceding November 1938.
First, Adolf Hitler came to power at the end of January 1933. Society started changing immediately through various laws, persecution of political opponents, and an increasingly party-controlled atmosphere. Citizens had to be racially pure, and racial ideology now permitted every sphere of society. Consequently, hundreds of thousands of Germans were forcibly sterilized and murdered. Germany changed into a one-party dictatorship. The party swiftly accomplished Racial Laws of 1935 and identification of Jews in official documents in 1938.
Nazi Party’s propaganda effort targeted German citizens as well as the outside world. In 1938 Adolf Hitler had several foreign policy successes. Nazi Germany was able to annex Austria into Germany, this is called the Anschluss. Through political maneuvering and threats, he was able to get the great powers of the time to hand over to Germany a part of Czechoslovakia called Sudetenland. In addition, it was becoming clear that there was no country that would accept large numbers of Jewish refugees. Nazi leadership had closely been watching the Ėvian Conference of July 1938 where Jewish refugees were the topic. Nazis had rightly assessed the situation. Only a few Jews would be given asylum by any country.
In November 1938 Germany transferred thousands of Polish Jews to a border area, a kind of “no man’s land” between Germany and Poland. These Jews were denied entry to either country and were stuck there without amenities, facilities, and most importantly appropriate nutrition. Word got out. A young Polish Jew living in Paris Herschel Grynszpan heard about his parents’ situation. He entered the German embassy in Paris and shot Ernst vom Rath, a German embassy official. Vom Rath died of his wounds on November 9th.
News of this reached Nazi officials who were gathered in southern Germany in Bavaria to celebrate Hitler’s failed coup of 1923. Nazi officials sent orders from Bavaria to various parts of Germany to start the action. Not only were synagogues burning, Torah scrolls, and prayer books desecrated, but also Jewish businesses were vandalized. 30 000 Jewish men were arrested. This took place from November 9 to 10, 1938. Nazi leadership claimed that this was a reaction by the public to Vom Rath’s murder. What is curious though is that archival records seem to indicate that in some places anti-Jewish action started already on November 8.
There was so much glass in the streets that the night became known as the Kristallnacht. As a final insult Jews were made to pay for the damaged property. The result of all these things that happened was the financial ruin of many German Jews. But it was also a sense of betrayal they now experienced. Some Jews even committed suicide as they saw how everything was changing in such a painful way around them.
It does seem like burnt synagogues, Torah scrolls, and prayer books are an enduring image of the Kristallnacht. But sadly, it is not only the 1930s that witnessed this. This kind of violence is not unknown to our world today. Until October 7, 2023, some of us may have believed that all of this belonged to the past. Yet, contemporary events have shown that the past in unexpected ways has not gone away. If we are not careful, we witness the same things happening over and over again. It is especially important that on Kristallnacht 2024 we are aware of the hatred and anti-Jewish actions going on right now.
As much as we may wish to change the past, there is no way we can make a stand in the past. Even God will not enable us to do that. We can recall it, and we can retell it but afterwards our goal must be that we should stand up and be upstanders in our own day.
The question is what it means to each person to be an upstander in today’s chaotic world.
