What Was Kristallnacht?

Kristallnacht (also called the Night of Broken Glass) was a horrible night for the Jewish community and by standing Germans. Herschel Grynszpan was a Polish Jew whose parents were expelled from the Reich and deported back to Poland. Herschel was very angry about his parents being deported, so he set out to give the Nazis an example of his hatred. He had a specific target in mind, a very high-ranking German official. He went to a German embassy in Paris, but his target was nowhere in sight. Instead, he settled for a lower ranking German official named Ernst vom Rath, who was a German diplomat. Immediately after the assassination of Ernst, the people of Germany attacked the Jewish community. 91 people were killed.

The German citizens, the SS, and the SA, were all perpetrators in Kristallnacht. They smashed the windows of Jewish synagogues, Jewish houses, and Jewish businesses. The perpetrators also burned down the Jewish houses, businesses, and synagogues. The firemen came, but only to protect the German citizens houses from burning down. The SS and SA deported over 30,000 Jews to concentration camps. Some historians believe that this was the start of the final solution, and the holocaust. Kristallnacht was spread throughout Germany. It took place on the night of November 9^th, 1938, and into the morning of November 10^th, 1938.