On November 9 and November 10, 1938, an incident known as “Kristallnacht” or the 'Night of Broken Glass" the Nazis in Germany torched synagogues, vandalized Jewish homes, schools and businesses and killed close to 100 people of Jewish heritage. In the aftermath of Kristallnacht, 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps. Since 1933, German Jews had been subjected to repressive policies when Nazi leader Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany. Soon after Adolf Hitler became Germany’s chancellor in 1933, he began instituting policies that isolated German Jews and subjected them to persecution. Among other things, the Nazis promoted extreme German nationalism and anti-Semitism, commanded that all Jewish businesses be boycotted and all Jews be dismissed from civil-service posts. German businesses were publicly announcing that they no longer serviced Jews. The Nuremberg Laws, passed in September 1935, decreed that only Aryans could be full German citizens. Furthermore, it became illegal for Aryans and Jews to marry.
It is also important to mention that, prior to Kristallnacht, these Nazi policies had been primarily nonviolent. After Kristallnacht, conditions for German Jews grew increasingly worse. During World War II (1939-45), Hitler and the Nazis implemented their policy called “Final Solution” to what they referred to as the “Jewish problem,” and carried out the systematic murder of some 6 million European Jews in what came to be known as the Holocaust.
"Some of the people disapproved. But their disapproval was only silence, and silence is what did the harm." Kurt Messerschmidt- Holocaust survivor
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