Kristallnacht

File:Interior of Berlin synagogue after Kristallnacht.jpg

The inside of a berlin synagogue after Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, was a pogrom enacted against the Jews of Germany by agents of the Nazi Party from November 9 to 10 in 1938. It is considered to be the official beginning of The Holocaust. The name Kristallnacht comes from the shards of broken glass that littered the streets after the windows of Jewish-owned stores, buildings, and synagogues were smashed.

Estimates of the number of fatalities caused by the pogrom have varied. Early reports estimated that 91 Jews were murdered during the attacks. Modern analysis of German scholarly sources by historians such as Sir Richard Evans puts the number much higher. When deaths from post-arrest maltreatment and subsequent suicides are included, the death toll climbs into the hundreds. Additionally, 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps.

Jewish homes, hospitals, and schools were ransacked, as the attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers. The rioters destroyed 267 synagogues throughout Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland, and over 7,000 Jewish businesses were either destroyed or damaged. The British historian Martin Gilbert wrote that no event in the history of German Jews between 1933 and 1945 was so widely reported as it was happening, and the accounts from the foreign journalists working in Germany sent shock waves around the world. The British newspaper The Times wrote at the time: "No foreign propagandist bent upon blackening Germany before the world could outdo the tale of burnings and beatings, of blackguardly assaults on defenseless and innocent people, which disgraced that country yesterday.

• A ruined synagogue after Kristallnacht
  A ruined synagogue after Kristallnacht
• Jewish prisoners line up for roll call at Buchenwald. These were arrested during Kristallnacht
  Jewish prisoners line up for roll call at Buchenwald. These were arrested during Kristallnacht
• An example of physical damage after the riots of Kristallnacht
  An example of physical damage after the riots of Kristallnacht