The cost of silence: Lessons from Kristallnacht

On Sunday, November 9, synagogues around the world will leave the lights on all night, marking the 87th anniversary of Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass. Kristallnacht was a turning point in the history of the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany and was a clear foreshadowing of events that led to the Holocaust.
Until November 1938, the Nazi program for Jews was one of humiliation, segregation, and exploitation, which was largely met with indifference by the German population. Jews were expelled from the public life, barred from schools, jobs, professions, and cultural events. But still, until 1938 many German Jews clung to the hope that the madness would pass and life for them would return to what it had been prior to the rise of Hitler.
On November 9, 1938, that hope was shattered. The Nazis embarked on a violent rampage against the Jews across Germany and Austria. Nazi officials justified the riots as retaliation for the shooting of a German diplomat by a 17-year-old Polish Jew, but it was, in fact, a coordinated state effort to advance the Nazi agenda against Jews.
Over the next 48 hours Nazi-led mobs destroyed and burned hundreds of synagogues, Jewish owned businesses, homes, and schools, and 91 Jews were murdered. Firemen and policemen were ordered to do nothing to stop the violence and destruction. Thirty thousand Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps. And to top it all off, Nazi officials blamed the Jews for the rioting and destruction and imposed a fine of one billion Reichsmarks on the German Jewish community.
The Nazis called the event Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, for the thousands of broken windows that filled the streets. It marked a shift from antisemitic laws and propaganda to open violence against Jews that led to the Holocaust 
Britain, realizing the dire situation for German Jews, accepted an unlimited number of children from Nazi Germany, a rescue mission known as The Kindertransport which saved 10,000 children. 
Most nations, however, including the USA, stood by, shrugged their shoulders, and did not change their strict immigration policies to let German Jews enter their countries while there still was the opportunity for them to leave. Nearly all those Jews who could not emigrate prior to the onset of WWII in Germany lost their lives in the Holocaust. 
So, who was responsible for Kristallnacht and what lessons can we learn today? Certainly, the November terror was sanctioned by Hitler. Most perpetrators were the obvious Nazis, the SS, the SA (brown shirts) and the idealistic Hitler Youth. But it was also the lack of response from the wider population that made it possible, and this is what must give us cause for thought today.
People did not need to be a member of the Nazi party or even antisemitic. They just needed to be passive, to be silent, for the terror to be unleashed. Sonia Klein, a Holocaust survivor warned that “Silence is the first thing after hate that is dangerous, because if you are silent, it’s an approval of what’s going on.”
In the wake of growing racism and antisemitism in this country and in many countries throughout the world, the lessons of Kristallnacht, the need to speak out and take action when injustices are committed, remain all too relevant today. As the synagogues around the world are illuminated on November 9, let us be reminded that we must use our voices to tell the world that attacks on Jews and non-Jews alike, whether based on religion, race, color, gender or creed are inexcusable.