Links to…Kristallnacht
This week we commemorate 71 years since Kristallnacht - the infamous pogrom instigated by German Nazis, which made clear to the world exactly what the National Socialist regime planned for its Jews: total eradication and debasement.
This day in German history - the 9th of November - has a conflicted identity. On the one hand, it symbolizes the fatal cocktail of hatred and prejudice. But on the other hand, it marks the opening of the Berlin Wall - the end of tyranny. Celebration and commemoration. Germany’s renowned news magazine Der Speigel examines the history and meaning of this “fateful date” in November 9 marks highs and lows in German history.
Sadly, anti-Semitism in Germany continues to exist. Although this year November 9 should have been an evening filled with celebration, in Dresden, the new Jewish synagogue/community center, which was just weeks ago the subject of a blog posting, was vandalized with swastikas and hate slogans spray painted on to the walls.
But there is still hope. Another - more heartening - article crossed our path. A 500-year-old Bible which disappeared from a Vienna library on the night of November 9, 1938 appeared at a New York auction house last year. Now, the two volume, gold engraved Bible is beginning its journey back home, to Vienna’s Jewish community.
