1938: “Night of Broken Glass” (Novemberpogrom)

On November 7, 1938, 17-year-old Herschel Grynszpan assassinated Ernst vom Rath, the second Legation Councillor of the German embassy in Paris. This was prompted by news of the deportation of Polish Jews—Grynszpan’s family included—across the Polish-German border, where they were crowded together in miserable accommodations near Zbąszyń. Ernst vom Rath’s death on November 9 gave the Nazi authorities a welcome pretext for a large-scale revenge campaign against the Jewish population, in the course of which synagogues and prayers houses as well as homes and businesses were destroyed across the entirety of the German Reich. The term “Reichskristallnacht”, which was cynically coined by the Nazis, refers to the broken glass that covered the streets following the destruction. Thousands of Jewish men were arrested and, before being deported to concentration camps, were placed in  temporary jails where they were sadistically abused for days; some were even murdered. Particularly brutal were the incidents that took place in Innsbruck where, for example, three Jewish men were murdered and another died of related injuries a few months later.