After Kristallnacht: Piecing Together the Shards
Eighty-eight years after Kristallnacht or “The Night of Broken Glass,” this horrific state- orchestrated pogrom is often regarded as a “prequel” to Nazi annihilation of Jews. This is the night when the Nazi campaign against Jews turned violent and marks “the beginning of the end” of the Final Solution. I agree with this analysis, but for a different reason. It was not so much the horrific violence against Jews but the mass burning and destruction of Jewish holy books and synagogues that marked the “end to the Jewish question.”
“The Final Solution” began before the Einzsatzgruppen (mobile killing squads) fired in mass at the “Jews themselves” following the German invasion of Russia on June 22, 1941. It started before the SS sophisticated their methods of mass-murder by testing the first use of gas vans in Chelmno. Events like The Wansee Conference of January 20, 1942, were all about murdering the “physical presence” of Jews for no other reason than having the audacity of being born Jewish. But it did not represent a final solution, which could only occur by cutting off Jews’ connection to Judaism and worship of Hashem.
That is why Rabbis like Daniel Moskowitz of Kelme, Lithuania asked the squad leader for a moment to address the Jews crowded together on the edge of a deep hole who were about to be shot en masse. He then addressed the Jews, saying:
“Let us sanctify God’s name and sing Ashreinu Mah Tov Helkeinu” (We are Happy with our lot). Astonishingly, the Jews sang together almost joyfully. When finished, the rabbi turned to the commander of the murder squad and said that he can begin now.
Kristallnacht, by targeting the synagogues and prayerbooks for burning and mass destruction, marked a crucial new beginning where Nazi policy shifted from wanting to wipe out not the ties Jews had to economics, their livelihood, their German citizenship and loyalty, but to their very essence, their unity and their deep connection to Judaism. Burning synagogues, Torah scrolls, and sacred prayerbooks throughout Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, would mark the end of Judaism, “the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” Eventually, the plan was for Jewish books and artifacts to be studied in a museum for “Extinct Peoples.” This was the Nazi plan as evidenced later by the “Rosenberg Squads” who looted Jewish museums and Centers of Jewish Culture throughout Nazi-conquered Europe during World War II.
Back to Kristallnacht: By the end of the pogrom on 4:00 am on the morning of November 10, hardly a synagogue throughout the Reich was not smoldering, with its Torah scrolls and prayer books in ashes. For Rabbi Yisrael Blau, the former chief Rabbi of Israel and youngest survivor of Buchenwald, “Kristallnacht was the beginning of the end” for the Jews. The shards of glass and smoldering synagogues; removing the Jew from his religion and the unity it stands for represents the ultimate final solution.
Interestingly enough, although Kristallnacht was the first and only large-scale pogrom in Nazi Germany, it was also a test for world Jews and the non-Jewish world. After the shards of the broken glass were cleared, the ashes swept away, and the burial of over 100 innocent, unsuspecting souls (some who ironically considered themselves more German than Jewish), what would the response be?
After the systematic violence ceased at precisely 4 am the morning of November 10th, the question turned to what would happen next. What would become of the 30,000 Jewish men incarcerated in the newly enlarged concentration camps of Buchenwald and Dachau? What would happen to the nearly 250,000 Jews who remained in Germany, unable to get out with no place to go and no money to go with? What would be the reaction of the rest of the world to Nazi Germany?
Just as eyewitness neighbors and friends of Jews merely stood by and watched during November 9/10, in the months and years following Kristallnacht very little would be done on the part of the Allied countries to rescue Jews, with two exceptions: the English Kindertransport that saved 10,000 children, and the American War Refugee Board, established in 1944, which saved approximately 200,000 Jews.
Following Kristallnacht, the Jews of Germany were shocked, helpless and alone. Eighty-five years later, after the brutal attack of October 7th, the Jews once again found themselves shocked and alone, but far from helpless. In both cases, world opinion unjustly placed blame on the victims for creating circumstances which “justified” the pogrom.
The obvious lesson to be learned is the necessity of military strength to guard and defend one’s life, whether individually or collectively. However, according to Rabbi Yisrael Blau, the answer is more than that; it means that each Jew must remain tied to Jewish roots and tradition to maintain the survival of the Jewish people. To separate a Jew from his religion is tantamount to offering the key to victory to those who perpetrated Kristallnacht. To all antisemites, the Jews are one and united. Perhaps we can learn that lesson and realize that, above all, it is our greatest and lasting strength.
