Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht Known as "Night of Crystal" and "Night of Broken Glass", Kristallnacht was a sequence of Anit-Jewish pograms taking place throughout Germany in reaction to a murder of a Nazi official. The conflict had started just a few days before when Nazis extended the Reich Citizenship Law, rejecting thousands of Polish Jews who currently resided in Germany to be apart of the Reich. Enraged by the reality of Nazi rule, Herschel Grynszpan, a Jew affected by the new law, shot an embassy official Ernst vom Rath on November 7th, 1938.

Fueled by Nazi Party officials and the wrathful Hitler Youth who needed no motivation or cue for violence, Kristallnacht began on November 9 and continued throughout the night. The progroms, or violent attacks, widely devasted and instilled fear into Jews all over the country. The main organizer who did nothing more than to rally angry Nazis, Joseph Goebbels, announced, "Demonstrations should not be prepared or organized by the Party, but insofar as they erupt spontaneously, they are not to be hampered." That would be the gun shot signaling the race to begin.  The violent night resulted in the burning of 267 synagogues and the estimated 7,500 Jewish owned shops and houses with windows in shatterred remains. Instead of let the insurance companies pay for all the damage, Nazi leaders put the blame of pogroms on the Jews, forcing them to deal with the issues caused by none other than the Nazis themselves. The events of Kristallnacht and all other pogroms in the 1930's were in a sense "Random Acts of Senseless Violence." A song off of Anthrax's Stomp 442 album, the cover art illustrates my idea of what the pogroms caused. Each incident built up recognition and added to the big ugly ball (the Jews) that became so hated and useless that it just had to be rolled away. In this case, it was rolled right on over to the concentration camps.

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