November 9th marks the eighty-fifth anniversity of Kristallnacht, the infamous “night of broken glass.”

The pretext for this part-pogrom, part state-sponsored riot was the assassination of German embassy official Ernst vom Rath in Paris. Throughout Germany and Austria, primarily in heavily Jewish areas, synagogues were destroyed, businesses gutted, and for the first time, Jews were arrested by the thousands and sent to the existing concentration camps like Dachau.  

Looking back, the mortal danger to the Jews of Germany was obvious. The Jews of Germany and Austria were concerned, of course, but many were comforted by the idea that Jews had survived calamities before and discrimination even leading to violence, was often a feature of the world they lived in. They just need to lie low, and the threat would pass.

When Hitler came to power many still did not take him seriously. One Jewish commentator in Chicago echoed what was commonly believed: Speculating that while the situation for Jews in Germany was dire, it was unlikely that Hitler would remain in power past one year.

The Nazis had made it clear that Jews were to be ostracized. The Nuremberg Laws had begun to be enforced, amounting to the isolation and exclusion of Jews from society. Physicians, professors, teachers, and civil servants all faced restrictions that often prevented them even interacting with Gentiles.

Large numbers of Jews who were able left the country. But others waited. It was Kristallnacht that left no doubt; Jewish life in Germany was at an end.

Charlotte Arpadi Baum’s family ran a popular Hungarian restaurant in Berlin. Only sixteen at the time, she writes about this time in her memoir, Hate Vanquished, Lives Remembered (Library of the Holocaust 2022):

“We were allowed to keep our passports, but it was stamped with a “J.” We also received new middle names; women had to add “Sarah” and the men “Israel” after their first name.

“My father was on friendly terms with many people in our area, among them the precinct police, as our restaurant was well known. At dawn on that morning [November 9^th] my father received a call from the police chief, warning him not to open the restaurant, which my father was in the habit of doing every day at 6 a.m. The police chief warned him that his life might be endangered. My father, not realizing the extent of the seriousness of his situation, did not listen and proceeded to open the door, not knowing that a mob was waiting outside ready to attack him and to destroy our restaurant. He managed to slam the door shut, escaped through the back entrance, and came home. Fortunately, we lived around the corner, a short walk from the business. The brown shirted SA men, equipped with guns, tore through the streets looking for Jewish men and my father was lucky that he was not killed. We did not dare to stay in our apartment for fear that the SA men might still be looking for him. Elderly neighbors offered to hide my father and my brother in their apartment. These kind, courageous Germans, whose name was Vanderbank, lived a few floors above us. One of our employees, a lovely lady, agreed to hide my mother and me and we spent several days in an attic space. We felt safe with her; her husband was a member of the Nazi party. His uniform hung in the closet -- he was a Nazi in name only.”

The Arpardi family had been making plans to emigrate eventually. Now there was no time and their friends could no longer protect them. They sold everything and were allowed to leave for neighboring Latvia.

“I remember our last night in Berlin, when we fearfully slept in our empty apartment, burning some leftover chairs to keep us warm. We left Berlin on January 29, 1939, afraid to remain another day.  January 30 was celebrated as the anniversary of day Hitler rose to power and one never knew what “surprises” were planned for the Jews.”

How many others were not as fortunate?

Jeremy B. Kay is the executive director of the Library of the Holocaust Foundation (HolocaustLibrary.org)

Jeremy.kay@holocaustlibrary.org

Image: National Archives