On the night of November 9, 1938 a horrible anger exploded among the Germans in the Reich ( the German Government). Historians are not sure what angered the Germans but they think it might have been the murder of one of their officials stationed in Paris. The Nazis planned pogroms (organized massacres). In two days over one thousand synagogues were burned to the ground. Seven thousand Jewish businesses were ruined and stolen from, and quite a few citizens were killed." The Night of Broken Glass" was also known as ÒKristallnachtÓ. It was called The Night of Broken Glass because of all of the store windows that were shattered on that tragic night.
Broken glass windows of shops, Berlin, Germany, November 10, 1938
The morning that followed that tragic night 30,000 Jewish men were arrested only because they were Jewish. They were sent to concentration camps where hundreds of them disappeared from the face of the earth. The Jewish women were also arrested but they were put in the local jails. The Jewish businesses that had survived the horrible pogrom were not allowed to reopen. Most of the Jewish citizens were given a curfew limiting their freedom. This tragic night put a lot of Jewish men and women in misery because their freedom was not equal to the German people.
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