1988 Fiftieth Annivesary Commemoration of the 1938 Night of Pogroms-Kristallnacht-Nazi attack on Jewish CommunityAh\,
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City of Dubuque
Proclamation
WHEREAS, in 1933, the Nazi Government of Germany came to power,
unleashing a reign of terror and persecution; and
WHEREAS, on November 9-1f,f 1938, he Nazi Government instigated
systematic an14 iitionwicle- ialen e directed against all
Jews ofGet-many, Austria aid. the t detenl and;' and
WHEREA,S such vaertimentally organized abuse "" as prepartory for
the went a1 annihilation bf Jews" and '-other peoples dis—
dair�gd by: h Nazis; ands( \'
WHEREAS, the peop o the City of Dubuq e, A cor: =nual ly rededi—
c ;te themsel.ves to the rotecto n f l i , liberty and
the pursui"t;of happiness or all.
NOW THEREFORE, I, JAMEt E. BRADY, MAYOR OF THE CITY OFF DUBUQUE, IOWA,
HEREBY PROCLAIM THE WEEK`,OF NOVEMBER13, 1988 AS1, e
' "REMEMBINCE OF THE NIGHT OF POG
AND BELIEVE THA1k
ALWAYS STRIVE TO
ING, VIGILANCE AND kESI TANCE.
S • .1
'PE NI OF THIS GREAT,LAND AND OUR FAIR CITY WILL
VElRCOMEf PREJUDICE AND t"NHUMANUrHROUGH UNDERSTAND—
N WITNESS THEREOF, I have hereunto
set my hand and caused the Great
Seal of the City of Dubuque, IA
to be affixed this 17th day of
October, 1988.
James E. Brady, MAYOR
ATTEST:
Mary A. Davis, City Clerk
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SAMPLE CIVIC PROCLAMATION
FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATION OF THE NIGHT OF POGROMS
("Kristallnacht")
NOVEMBER 9-10, 1938
Whereas, in 1933, the Nazi Government of Germany came to power,
unleashing a reign of terror and persecution;
Whereas, on November 9-10, 1938, the Nazi Government instigated
systematic and nationwide violence directed against all
Jews of Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland;
Whereas, such governmentally organized abuse was preparatory for
the eventual annihilation of Jews and other peoples
disdained by the Nazis;
Whereas, the people of the State/City of
continually rededicate themselves to the protection of
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all;
Therefore, as Governor of the State of /
Mayor of the City of , in the belief that the
people of this great land, the United States, will always
strive to overcome prejudice and inhumanity through
understanding, vigilance and resistance, I hereby declare
November 6-13, 1988, as the week of remembrance of the
Night of Pogroms.
NIGEIT OF POGROMS
"KRISTALLIYACtIT"
NOVEMBER 9 AND 10, 1938
"1 myself could scarcely believe that such things
could occur in a twentieth century civilization."
Pranklln Delano Roosevelt
President of the United States
November 13, 1938
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council
2000 L Street, N.W., Suite 588
Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 653-9220
CONTENTS OF EDUCATIONAL BOOKLET
NIGHT OF POGROMS, NOVEMBER 9-10, 1938
Background on the Night of Pogroms
Documents:
Nazi Documents
Diplomatic Dispatches
Eyewitness Accounts
Responses Selected from the Print, Media and
the Literature
Suggested Program Ideas for Schools and Community Observances
Study Aids
Highlights of Events - March 13, 1938 through
January 30, 1939
Photograph of Burning Synagogue in Wiesbaden,
Germany, November 9-10, 1938
Map of the Destruction of the Synagogues, 9 November 1938
Resources
Sources of Additional Information and/or Materials
(Holocaust Resource Centers)
Bibliography
Filmography
ORDER FORM
Send Night of Pogroms booklet Send Poster
Name
Street Address
City
State Zip Code
meo
United Sates
i3oiomm Afemo W Council
United States Holocaust Memorial Council
Background on the Night of Pogroms
"Dead silence -- not a sound to be heard in the town. The
lamps in the street, the lights in the shops and in the
houses are out. It is 3:30 a.m. All of a sudden noises in
the street break into my sleep, a wild medley of shouts and
shrieks. I listen, frightened and alarmed, until I
distinguish words: Get out, Jews! Death to the Jews!"*
With methodical precision during the night of Wednesday,
November 9th, and early morning of Thursday, November 10th, 1938,
SA, SS and Nazi stormtroopers, disguised in plain clothes,
assembled in pre -arranged meeting places and fanned out to
selected targets in the Jewish communities of Germany, Austria
and the occupied Sudetenland (the Third Reich). Following
Gestapo instructions, these Nazi agents axed windows, demolished
furnishings, wrecked houses, smashed store fronts, ravaged
merchandise, torched synagogues, and arrested thousands of Jews.
As the well coordinated destruction took place, most "neighbors"
just watched.
By Friday morning, November 11, nearly 100 Jews were dead,
7,500 Jewish businesses had been destroyed, 275 synagogues had
been razed or burned, and 30,000 Jews had been arrested, the
majority of whom were sent to the German concentration camps of
Dachau, Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald. Carpets of crushed glass
and debris covered the streets in the towns and cities of the
Third Reich.
The German public labeled this event "Kristallnacht" or
Night of the Broken Glass. Some American newspapers dubbed it
"Black Thursday," while others, comparing the destruction with
the physical attacks against Jews in Czarist Russia, called it
the Night of Pogroms.
Within days of the event, Hermann Goering, Reich Minister of
the Four -Year Plan, issued the Decree Eliminating the Jews from
German Economic Life. A 25 percent "flight" (thousands of Jews,
in response to "Kristallnacht," began seeking refuge in other
countries) tax on all Jewish property being removed from German
territory and, in a perverse maneuver, levied a fine of one
*Bentwich, Norman. "Kristallnacht: Pogrom in Emden." Jewish
Youth Comes Home. In: Eisenberg, Azriel. Witness to the
Holocaust. New York: The Pilgrim Press, 1981, page 84.
-2-
billion marks ($400 million) on the Jewish communities to
compensate for the damages wrought by the Nazis. Goering
expropriated all remaining Jewish businesses by transferring
their ownership to "Aryan" hands. Thus, surviving Jews were not
only robbed and assaulted, but they were made to absorb the cost
of destroyed property belonging to them without any means of
income.
Panic pervaded the Jewish communities. Thousands packed
Western European and American consulates pleading for exit visas.
Only a small percentage managed to escape, since the total
requests far exceeded the stringent immigration rules and
regulations established by such countries as France, Great
Britain, the United States, Canada and others. In desperation,
some Jews committed suicide. A few thousand others managed to
emigrate to Shanghai (China), British -controlled Palestine, South
America, South Africa and Australia. Of approximately 560,000
Jews remaining in the Reich at the time of "Kristallnacht," a
group representing barely one percent of the total population,
about 160,000 were able to get out (nearly one out of every
three.)
"Kristallnacht" marked the intensification of a 5-year anti-
Semitic program initiated by Adolph Hitler, Chancellor of
Germany, soon after he assumed power in 1933. Between January
30, 1933, and November 9, 1938, through a series of laws, Jews
had been systematically denied their civil rights within the
German community and gradually deprived of the right to gainful
employment. The violent physical violations of November 9-10
were the first attacks on Jews to go beyond the borders of
Germany, affecting incorporated Austria and the newly occupied
Sudetenland.
These events were widely reported in the United States
media. News stories filled the front pages of papers and close
to a thousand editorials were printed. Americans reacted
initially with outrage. Offers of humanitarian relief spanned
the entire political, religious and social spectrum of U.S.
society. The local and national press and radio echoed the
ordinary citizen's empathy; pledges streamed from parishes,
congregations and school districts to adopt and shelter Jewish
families and their children. Calls for an economic and political
boycott of Nazi Germany poured into Washington from trade unions,
civic associations, parent -teacher associations as well as from
leaders of both political parties.
On Tuesday, the 15th of November, President Franklin
Roosevelt announced the recall of Hugh Wilson, the U.S.
Ambassador to Germany, and issued a special press release
expressing shock and dismay. Notwithstanding the public outcry,
the Department of State decided not to alter U.S. immigration
laws.
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The events of November 9-10 were a significant advancement
of the Nazis' "final solution of the Jewish question." Within
two months following "Kristallnacht," Hitler, in a major address
to the German Parliament, promised the destruction of the Jewish
people throughout Europe should there be war. Thus, the Jews
were inexorably consigned to the Nazis' Kingdom of Night.
Under what pretext had the Nazis unleased such blatant
criminal violence against the Jews at this time? In Paris,
France, on Monday, November 7, 1938, Herschel Grynszpan, a
teenage immigrant Jew, shot Ernst vom Rath, the Third Secretary
in the German Embassy in Paris. Grynszpan was protesting the
Nazi Government's forced expulsion of his family from Germany
back to Poland as part of the Nazis' anti-Jewish policy (known as
the Zbonszyn Incident).
Following on the news of vom Rath's death at 4:00 p.m. on
November 9, what purported to be "spontaneous" attacks on Jews,
synagogues, and other Jewish property broke out throughout the
Third Reich. These were surreptitiously organized by local Nazi
Party officials, instigated by the anti-Semitic Reich Propaganda
Leader, Dr. Josef Goebbels. The actions were carried out by SA
and SS men in plain clothes, as well as other Party members. As
the depredations spread, and murder and mayhem were mingled with
arson against synagogues and Jewish -owned stores and shops,
uniformed police cordoned off the areas and did not interfere
with the ongoing handiwork of the perpetrators. Firemen stood by
only to prevent the spread of the raging fires to Aryan property.
Meanwhile, the Gestapo carried out their orders to arrest 20,000
to 30,000 preferably affluent Jews. The rampage continued
unabated all that night and well into the next morning.
The Nazis attempted to camouflage their viciousness under
the cloak of vindication, but the world decried these acts as
barbarism. The tremor of protest over "Kristallnacht" soon
passed, however.
As for the 17-year-old Herschel Grynszpan, for over a year
the French developed elaborate plans to bring him to trial. The
proceedings were never initiated. He fell into the hands of the
Nazis after their occupation of France. Dr. Josef Goebbels was
to have staged a showcase trial, but again the plans were never
carried out. No records have emerged since the war disclosing
conclusive evidence of this young man's fate.
Fifty years later, why should we commemorate this event?
Americans should remember the tragedy of "Kristallnacht" as an
event which demonstrates the need for national resolve to respond
to government -sponsored persecution anywhere in the world.
Remembrance also calls for national rededication to the
principles of tolerance and freedom of choice which form the very
foundation of our democratic society.
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"...Anyone who closes his eyes to the past is blind to
the present. Whoever refuses to remember...is prone to
new risks of infection.... We must erect a memorial to
thoughts and feelings in our own hearts."
Excerpt from a speech by the President of the Federal Republic of
Germany, Richard von Weizsacker, May 8, 1985, on the 42nd
anniversary of the conclusion of World War II.
"Seeking to forget makes exile all the longer. The
secret of redemption lies in remembrance.
Jewish Wisdom [Baal Shem Tov (ca. 1700-1760)].
September 1988
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL COUNCIL MEMBERS
Chairman
Harvey M. Meyerhoff
Vice Chairman
William J. Lowenberg
Members
The Honorable Jack Abramoff
The Honorable Philip Abrams
The Honorable Albert Abramson
The Honorable Matthew Brown
The Honorable David T. Chase
The Honorable George Deukmejian
The Honorable Barbaralee Diamonstein-
Spielvogel
The Honorable Bill Duna
The Honorable Dalck Feith
The Honorable Abraham H. Foxman
The Honorable Erna I. Gans
The Honorable Alfred Gottschalk
The Honorable Sylvia Hassenfeld
The Honorable Milton Himmelfarb
The Honorable Robert J. Horn
The Honorable Herbert D. Katz
The Honorable Marvin G. "Jerry" Keifer
The Honorable Bobbie Greene Kilberg
The Honorable Julian E. Kulas
The Honorable Ronald S. Lauder
The Honorable Miles Lerman
The Honorable Theodore Lerner
The Honorable Harry H.
vitch
The Honorable Franklin Littell
The Honorable Steven A. Ludsin
The Honorable Ingeborg G.
Mauksch
The Honorable Benjamin Meed
The Honorable Robert H. Mendelsohn
The Honorable Ruth Miller
The Honorable Set Momjian
The Honorable Isaac Neuman
The Honorable Murray Pantirer
The Honorable John T. Pawlikowski
The Honorable Bernard S. Ras as
The Honorable Sheila Johnson Robbins
The Honorable Edward H. Rosen
The Honorable Richard M. Rosenbaum
The Honorable Edward M. Rosenfeld
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Congressional
Hadassah Rosensaft
Abram L. Sachar
Julius Schatz
Richard Schifter
Sigmund Strochlitz
Kalman Sultanik
Arnold Thaler
Laurence A. Tisch
Glenn Watts
Sheila Rabb Weidenfeld
Elie Wiesel (Founding Chairman)
Siggi B. Wilzig
Eli Zborowski
Members
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Robert Garcia
S. William Green
Bob Kasten
Frank R. Lautenberg
William Lehman
Frank H. Murkowski
Claiborne Pell
Stephen P. Solarz
Lowell P. Weicker
Sidney R. Yates
Ex Officio Members
Department of Education:
Ms. Shannon Sorzano
Department of Interior:
Mr. William Penn Mott, Jr.
Department of State:
Morris I. Leibman, Esquire
1980
United states
Holocaust Memorial council
United States Holocaust Memorial Council
September 15, 1988
Dear Mayor:
This year, 1988, marks the fiftieth anniversary of a dark chapter
in human history. On November 9-10, 1938, SA, SS and Nazi
stormtroopers disguised in plain clothes destroyed Jewish
property and arrested Jews en masse throughout Germany, Austria
and the occupied Sudetenland. This action marked a new brutal
and violent phase in the German Government's policy of legalized
persecution begun in 1933. It led to the eventual murder of six
million Jews and millions of others; and the enslavement and
starvation of peoples throughout Europe. The event was called
"Kristallnacht" by the German public, which deliberately coined
an innocuous phrase which shielded and made a mockery of the
actual destruction of life, limb and property.
This anniversary will be observed during the week of November 6-
13 in a variety of ways across America -- synagogues will be lit
each night during the week of commemoration; motorists will
drive with their headlights on; there will be special messages
from United States Congressional Members; there will be
community -sponsored programs with eyewitnesses, survivors and
their children; there will be lectures, sermons, films, readings,
requiems; and there will be television specials broadcast in many
parts of the country.
We invite you to join the United States Holocaust Memorial
Council and the nation in remembering this Night of Pogroms by
issuing a special proclamation. A sample is enclosed as well as
"Background on the Night of Pogroms" which we hope will be
helpful. An educational booklet and a subtlely poignant poster
are also available free of charge from the Council (see order
form also enclosed).
We are grateful for your participation in the Days of Remembrance
commemoration that takes place each spring. We hope that you
will join us now in this very special anniversary observance.
Sincerely,
Harvey M. hoff
Chairman
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council
e r _ c L
J mi
n ' zlMeed
Chairman
Days of Remembrance Committee
2000 L Street NW, Suite 588, Washington, D.C. 20036-4907, (202) 653-9220