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Kristallnacht

In November 1938 a Jewish student in Paris named Herschel Grynszpan, angry at the way his parents had been treated in Germany, shot a German diplomat.

Two days later, on 9 November, Josef Goebbels used the incident as an excuse to organise a nationwide riot against the Jews. During the rampage, Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues were destroyed. Some 91 Jews were killed and over 30,000 were detained in concentration camps. This night became known as ‘Kristallnacht’: the Night of Broken Glass.

Talking at Beth Shalom Lisa Vincent recalls the events of Kristallnacht
‘It must have been three or four o’clock in the morning when I was ripped out of my sleep by the sound of smashing crockery and glass... They rushed about the room smashing, throwing, trampling. Now fear became a living thing’.
Hannule Zurndorfen, writing in her book
‘The Ninth of November’.
   
   
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