I really like your blog–it. like beyond blue takes what is sad and hurtful and makes mosaic vases and other art work out of it.

There is a vital, if not urgent need for expanded research, collection of documents and materials and their preservation. If one looks at the loss of American history by development and neglect, the picture of the horrific impacts of the Nazi era is even less welldocumented as strange as that may sound. Similalry, the archeology of significant sites remains to be done. The trash heaps (literally the garbage dumps) of Europe can be a major source of information. Finding and recording the memories of survivors throughout the world, although begun, is largely incomplete and every day, thousands of witnesses are lost as they die. The task of hisotry is to preserve the past so that we may bear witness and prevent the resurgence of new horrors.

Hard to believe this occured only 4 years before I was born.
Altho I am not of German heritage we Jews who were born here are SO lucky that our relatives before us came here otherwise who knows if we would even have been born!
hugs
Laura

I am non jewish, but being 73 means I remember all to well the holocaust, and although the new generations are looking to make a better future, those past moments in history need to be remembered. If the present generations become complacent, forms of the holocaust can and will erupt again. Yes, I am old, but we must never forget what can happen, and the pain and suffering so many of our jewish friends and relatives endured.

I was born after the fact of this atrocity, but I am German (of Jewish ancestry but not practicing any religion) and have heard a different perspective.
Many of the non-Jewish Germans of the era I have had conversations with said Kristallnacht terrified them, too. They told me they did not think of Jews as particularly different from anybody else, except, and this for historical reasons that had to with ownership rights, usually a lot more successful in the professions than non-Jewish Germans. The idea that the Reich could persecute people who were so much like them in so many ways caused them, in the words of one man who would be in his late 80′s now, “think of ways to be like sardines in a can.” It was because so many Germans considered Jews to be Germans, too, that the night had its intended effect on non-Jews.
It wasn’t all about persecuting Jews. It was also about terrorizing everybody else. People who aren’t evil or crazy (and I have no doubt some Nazis were both) don’t do the things they were expected to do unless they begin from a place of stark terror. That is the history that is being neglected.

It wasn’t all about persecuting Jews. It was also about terrorizing everybody else.
There is something to that. The Nazis used Kristallnacht to remove officials who stood in the way of Nazi thugs and tried to protect Jews – notably police officials. What was left of German civil officialdom after Kristallnacht was thus totally compliant with Nazi needs.
However, those Germans complaining about feeling terrorized themselves – are they willing to talk about the mass enthusiasm and support they felt for Hitler and Nazidom in those early days of the Nazi era? When they were silent as Hitler and his goons clamped down on Jews, murdered or imprisoned gays, Communists, and democrats, and forced the military to swear personal allegiance to Hitler?
That all happened FIVE YEARS before Kristallnacht. By their own testimony, these Germans were not thinking about “how to be sardines” then. These survivors were probably young and enthusiastic Nazi supporters. Some of them just didn’t realize until Kristallnacht that the Jews were merely the “canary in the coal mine”, and that they themselves could become the next victims of the wolves of the regime. They were shocked, but continued to do nothing to alter the course of events.

If anyone has seen the movie Freedon Writers, I hope they will give a responsee to my inquiry. The movie equated the lives of Holocaust survivors with the lives of inner-city students who live with gang violence. I was, at first, very offended when gang violence was even mentioned with Nazi slaughter and voilence toward Jews.
Is Kristallnacht the same as a drive-by shooting? Can gang members who shoot each other (or those who live around them who are shot) be equated with Jews in Hitler’s Europe?
I would appreciate hearing from anyone who can take the time to respond.
Lucy

Very interesting and insightful comments. The lessons of Kristallnacht should not be ignored. First, we shouldn’t become complacent about the status quo; what humans have created, humans can destroy.
Next, that wonderful document, The United States Constitution, should be protected by each of us. The rights we have, thanks to it, make it difficult, but not impossible for a future Hitler to take away our liberty and freedom.
Guard each and every right with equal fervor. Many of you reading this consider yourselves highly sophisticated. You call those of us who enjoy things like hunting, fishing, camping, shooting and other outdoor activities “bitter”. The man you follow says things like “…they cling to guns or religion…” while you knowingly nod your heads in agreement because you deem your lifestyles to be oh so superior.
We all cling to our religion, otherwise we wouldn’t be posting here. Does that make any of us bitter? The same first amendment that makes it possible for us to attend Torah Services on Shabbos also made it possible for the president-elect to sit in his church for twenty years and ignore his pastor’s venomous sermons.
I urge each of you to view any attempt to limit our Constitutional rights by any elected official as an attempt to visit another Kristallnacht on us. Whether it is an attempt to limit our ability to own a weapon, to speak our mind, to write our opinions or go to the house of worship of our choice, zealously fight any attempt to limit our rights. NEVER AGAIN should be each and very Jew’s personal mantra.

I am not Jewish..I am Scott Irish…and I guess as we used to say a WASP. I have not heard that for a long time…maybe because who cares? I hope so…because there was a time when I was younger..I too had a dislike for anything Jewish.. (And I felt it was getting worse) Why,? I dont know, really, because I was not raised around Jewish people…just a small town. When I was in my late 40s…I had a son-in-law that I thought was very over baring and abusive not by force, but by his actions. Personally, I, for the first time in my life, felt what it must have been to be persecuted against!! This may sound strange or even silly, to think such a small thing could be comparred to the horror of those consentration camps. But, after a time when this young man and my daugther, with their beautifull young baby girl, were staying at my home in Atlanta, GA. while he looked for work..I felt not in controll of my own household.with this young man…I could not even hold my own grandaughter!!! One day, indespaire, I went outside on my porch and …prayed. I thought my pray was strange..because what I said was, “Dear GOD, I know how your people must have felt to be persecuted, and I am sorry. Please take this feeling from me” And it was as if a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Now I really mean that. I acually stood up straight!! And I felt such love for the Jewish people…that even to day that feeling is still there. I like anything Jewish! It is funny! But I feel as though my heart is cleansed. Now I know there are all kinds of people, be they of any religion or blood…that are not good people..just not good people and find themselves in a situation that they just dont care…And it is a dangerous way to be….because of their selfness they will do what ever they want, as long as it benifits their needs. Just look at this election today…Is it no wonder?..I am a very young 74…I never thought I would in my life time see such a thing that just happened.!..Not because this man is black…but because of his background…..Whoever heard of him before.? He is a mistory..and does not want anyone to know about him. .Our Bible says that days like these will happen when the world is in a turmoil…and a man will rise up out of the sea (meaning people), and they will swarm around him because he promises all things, that the people want. He is a fake..and a fraud….I do not believe this is that one yet, but the GOD of our fathers has sent us a warning. Someone will say “dont you think we should give this man a chance” Sure…But stay very close to GOD and say your prayers.He is not going to be able to fix what is happining…And it will happen again… (I think in the time of 2032)..In time…When GOD is ready ..You be ready…SHLOM HAHAHA

Al,
You can’t let it o? On a thread about our dead, you’re still going to fight the election?!
Sorry, but that kind of discussion does not belong in one about the Holocaust. It is, in fact, disgustingly out of place (as it would if, say, one of us called GWB a Nazi here).

It is not that we will be witout the victims of the atrosity, rather they are present with us or not, does not lessen the evils of the situations. We do not have to have witnesses about what happened to remember. Though I am sure that some beleive this takes away the support and consideration of the past and the evils. We all knew this day would approach one day. It is here, the question before us now is where do we go from here, and what do we do? It is the responsibility of all Jewish people to keep in mind that Jewish people live in Muslim countries and suffer attrosities ever day, and also in other countries, including the United States, we as Jewish people should unite every resource to stop all these evils no matter where they occure, and bring the people to strength, and out of harms way. Pulling together through love, caring, strength, arms when needed and money. Strengthening all our people world wide and relocating when necessary.

“However, those Germans complaining about feeling terrorized themselves – are they willing to talk about the mass enthusiasm and support they felt for Hitler and Nazidom in those early days of the Nazi era? When they were silent as Hitler and his goons clamped down on Jews, murdered or imprisoned gays, Communists, and democrats, and forced the military to swear personal allegiance to Hitler?”
They are mostly dead now, but the answer to your first question is yes.
Here’s a typical response when I put the question to someone of that era. It would be something on the lines of “I was hungry all the time as a child, then I wasn’t hungry for a few years after Anschloss. When Hitler took over, we had bread and soup and a chicken now and then. Before Hitler, there was disaster. After Hitler, there was disaster, but for a while under Hitler, our stomachs didn’t rumble.”
I remember one man, who’d be about 80 now, telling me that he joined the Hitler Youth and then the SS at age 15 because he was informed his mother and younger sister would not get any ration cards if he didn’t. Should he have joined the SS, or not, do you suppose?
And I had an uncle who was a captain in the US Army who said as a matter of policy they shot any SS trooper on capture. One time, he said, he personally executed 112 SS inductees aged 15 to 17. Were they innocent? I think not. Were they demons? I think not. Can we make that judgment? My uncles eventually lost his mind over the guilt of that and similar incidents.
And the issues of the time were not as obvious then as they are now. I had a relative on my mother’s side of the family, a Jew, who voted for the National Socialists in 1932 because, he wrote the family in America, “Hitler will bring economic stability.” Hitler did. That relative was never heard from again after 1933 (and we’ve never been able to find any records on him). My father’s family was Lutheran. One relative popped off about Hitler being a petty dictator and 14 members of the family were executed, this also in 1933. They have a nice monument in Passau, although it keeps getting covered with swastikas even now.
Perhaps you are of greater courage than they. I frankly do not know how I would have acted in the same situation myself. I believe it is easy to pronounce judgment from the relative security of the twenty-first century in either the EU or the USA.

>
By vowing & ensuring – Never again – Not to anybody – Not anywhere.
Is their pain any less than ours ?

Scott R, I guess my post went way over your head. My ending paragraph reads:
“I urge each of you to view any attempt to limit our Constitutional rights by any elected official as an attempt to visit another Kristallnacht on us. Whether it is an attempt to limit our ability to own a weapon, to speak our mind, to write our opinions or go to the house of worship of our choice, zealously fight any attempt to limit our rights. NEVER AGAIN should be each and very Jew’s personal mantra.”
That, was the thrust of the post. Did I besmirch our president-elect by quoting him? Did I besmirch him by recalling his actions? Does the truth cause you that much discomfort?
In small words what I tried to get across is be wary of those who hold office who try to limit ANY of our constitutional rights. That means both the ones you personally like and the ones you do not. Kapish?

So Al, were you out protesting in the streets when George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were chipping away at our constitutional freedoms? When the Patriot Act made us similar to Soviet Russia? When the Republicans demonized all liberals and Democrats as un-American for not supporting the war? How about when the Republican Party threw in their lot with the Xian fascists of the Religious Right?
Somehow I think I know the answer.
Well, you know what? My family had to live through 8 years of hell (opened by the Pubs stealing the Vice Presidency from a Jew). Now’s your turn.

To protect the constitutional rights that are slowely disapating takes more that a mere conscience to vote. And it is not just a single persons fault for a political shift or change, and to think that just one person can or should be held to suffer because of a indifference is wrong. It is not that one person will suffer but that we all will suffer. It takes companionship and compadra ship to unflock unjustice, let all people around the world who watched the election take notice. That it is people who make changes and governments that bend.But when ever a truely deadly agenda does sprout its head, it is not just one government that is the hero, but all governments. A unified world government sphereheade with universal application, and my prayers Jewish dominancy.

can i have some quotes?

Instead of wailing and complaining we should get our own back, we should act exactly the way we are being accused of doing things. They maim or kill one of us, we should maim and kill two of them. That’s the only thing bullies and racist m-f c-s s.o.b.s understand. Remember the story of the lamb and the wolf? A lamb was drinking downriver and a wolf upriver. The wolf suddenly yelled: “You dirty little lamb, you’re muddying my water!” The lamb replied: “How could I? The stream is flowing down from where YOU are!” The wolf: “That’s a lie, my water is full of mud and for this I’ll kill and eat you….”

Instead of wailing and complaining we should get our own back, we should act exactly the way we are being accused of doing things. They maim or kill one of us, we should maim and kill two of them. That’s the only thing bullies and racist m-f c-s s.o.b.s understand. Remember the story of the lamb and the wolf? A lamb was drinking downriver and a wolf upriver. The wolf suddenly yelled: “You dirty little lamb, you’re muddying my water!” The lamb replied: “How could I? The stream is flowing down from where YOU are!” The wolf: “That’s a lie, my water is full of mud and for this I’ll kill and eat you….”