 The
World Watched as the Holocaust Began
On the nights of
November 9 and 10, 1938, rampaging
mobs throughout Germany and the newly
acquired territories of Austria and
Sudetenland freely attacked Jews in
the street, in their homes and at their
places of work and worship. At least
96 Jews were killed and hundreds more
injured, as many as 2,000 synagogues
were burned, almost 7,500 Jewish businesses
were destroyed, cemeteries and schools
were vandalized, and 30,000 Jews were
arrested and sent to concentration
camps. This pogrom has come to be called Kristallnacht,
“the Night of Broken Glass.”
Although numerous
anti-Jewish regulations had been adopted
prior to Kristallnacht, these measures
had only imposed restrictions on German
Jews' economic activity and occupational
opportunities. Prior to Kristallnacht,
the Jews had little reason to believe
their physical safety was at risk.
That all changed 70 years ago this
coming November. The events of that
night were the beginning of the Holocaust.
It is fitting that
a book record the events of this seminal
historical event on the occasion of
the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht.
This book provides an account of the
incidents immediately preceding the
attacks on November 9-10, an oral history
that provides a minute-by-minute and
hour-by-hour account of what happened
during the pogroms, and an analysis
of the immediate aftermath and why
the Holocaust can be dated from this
evening.
What Reviewers and Experts Say About 48
Hours of Kristallnacht
“The further away
we get from the years of the Holocaust,
the more necessary it is to recount
what happened. One of the seminal events
in Hitler’s goal to destroy European
Jewry was the “Night of Broken Glass”
-- Kristallnacht. Mitchell
Bard provides a comprehensive and penetrating
account that should be read not only
as a history of Holocaust, but as a
lesson for the future.”
— Abraham H.
Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation
League and author of The Deadliest
Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth
of Jewish Control and Never
Again? The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism
“Kristallnacht’s new Book of Lamentations.
Mitchell Bard’s 48 Hours of Kristallnacht’s
power derives from the stark and vivid
words of German Jewish children who,
in a single day saw their well-ordered
world suddenly destroyed by the Nazis’
brutality and the apathy and silence
of neighbors and classmates.”
— Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate
Dean of the Simon Weisnthal Center
“The night of
November 9 and 10, 1938, was the date
of the infamous Kristallnacht. Lawless
mobs throughout Germany and the newly
acquired territories of Austria and the
Sudetenland attacked Jews in the streets,
in their homes, and at their places of
work and worship. At least 96 Jews were
killed, including 43 women and 13 children,
and hundreds were injured. More than
1,300 synagogues were set on fire,almost
7,500 Jewish businesses were destroyed,
and numerous cemeteries and schools were
vandalized. A total of 30,000 Jews were
arrested and sent to concentration camps.
Bard begins with a chapter he calls "Warning
Signs," writing that the official
persecution of the Jews began in April
1933, when the Nazis initiated a boycott
of Jewish businesses. Signs and graffiti
warned Germans not to buy from Jews,
who were barred from civil service jobs.
Later they were stripped of their citizenship
and not allowed to marry Aryans. Bard
has written the most detailed and thoroughly
researched book yet on the events of
Kristallnacht.”
— George Cohen, Booklist
“Eyewitnesses recall the degradation
and devastation that 70 years ago marked
a point of no return Jews in Germany.
Kristallnacht, “the
night of broken glass,” was actually
two nights: November 9 and 10, 1938,
when throughout the Third Reich (including
the annexed Sudetenland and Austria)
crowds engaged in a premeditated , organized
pogrom. The assassination of a Nazi Functionary
in Paris provided the excuse, but in
fact Kristallnacht continued the campaign
of systematic persecution begun five
years earlier with the anti-Semitic Nuremberg
Laws; many today consider the brutal
term the Nazis originally used, “Jew
Action,” to be a more accurate summary
of their intentions. Bard (“Will Israel
Survive?”, 2007, etc), the director of
the Jewish Virtual Library, culls his
griping (sic) oral history primarily
from survivor accounts collected by other
scholars and the Shoah Foundation. Overnight,
power and phone lines were cut. Jewish
homes, offices and shops all previously
identified, were invaded, destroyed and
looted. Mobs burned books, furniture,
toys, schools and thousands of synagogues.
Fire brigades, ready to protect adjacent
Aryan property if necessary, stood by
and watched the conflagrations. Marauding
SS and Brown Shirts scorned Iron Crosses
earned by Jewish soldiers in the Great
War. They took souvenirs, stole silver
and piggy banks, smashed china and pianos-
and the glass windows that gave the action
its historic sobriquet. Tens of thousands
of adult men were seized and sent to
concentration camps. Families were broken.
Children were scattered. Some Jews emigrated
soon after, some were murdered that night,
some died by suicide. Kristallnacht has
been the subject of scholarly attention,
but Bard focuses on experiences of children,
reprinting powerful testimonies of the
fear they felt and the hatred directed
against them. A few gentiles expressed
sympathy, but the majority of the German
population seemed quite pleased with
the Wagnerian events. There would be
little popular objection to the murder
of millions that was to come.
A searing depiction of the Holocaust’s
opening ceremonies.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“Drawing on his unprecedented
access to key archives, Dr. Mitchell
G. Bard presents a shocking story that
centers on the words of those who, as
children, were on the scene first-hand.
Together, these accounts and Bard’s incisive
analysis reveal what led up to the pogroms,
how they transpired, and their aftermath—and
why the Holocaust can be dated from these
two harrowing nights.”
— Pentagon Library
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