My friend and I used to meet at least once weekly for lunch or Happy Hour after work. These meetings usually preceded his weekly trip to Queens for a dinner visit with the parents.
At one point it became more HH than lunch and I noticed he would become sullen and withdrawn after a few drinks. Then one night after a little too much HH, he was too drunk to deal with the parents, and asked me to have dinner with him, he needed to share something with me.
That night I learned that he had been begging his parents to give up their old car, they were in their 70s and didn't drive much anyway. But they steadfastly refused to even think about such a thing, no matter how rational the arguments regarding their age, the extra expense of insurance, the parking space, etc.
It turned out that on a previous visit his father became so upset by the subject being brought up yet again, that he began to shake and cry. Finally, he blurted out "If we don't have the car what will we do if they come for us again?" Dinner was forgotten as his parents told him of their escape (no easy feat by 1938) from Nazi Germany just weeks after Kristallnacht. They had to beg, borrow, steal, and ultimately leave everything behind. They made it to Spain. There they found passage to the US.
They arrived with nothing, worked hard and built a life. Always with fear in the back of their minds. No news of family members who, for whatever reason, stayed behind. They never told their only son anything until that night. To say we were both a wreck after relating this tale would be a vast understatement. I thanked him for sharing this horrible story with me as we finished our second bottle of wine. We agreed that the automobile issue would never be brought up again. That was also the last time the episode was ever mentioned, by his parents or between us. Just thought I'd share.
On the night of Nov. 9, 1938, gangs of Nazis attacked Jewish businesses and religious sites around Germany, destroying thousands of stores and synagogues. The violence would continue for nearly two days, and the Nazis chose to name it Kristallnacht or crystal night -- symbolizing the final shattering of Jewish existence in Germany.
Pretext for the spree of violence was the shooting of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by a Polish-Jewish student, Herschel Grynszpan, on Nov.7. When the news of vom Rath's death reached Nazi headquarters in Berlin, the event was used to urge members to take to the streets and attack Jewish sites.
By the end of Nov. 10, 7,000 Jewish businesses would be destroyed, 900 synagogues were torched, more than 90 people were killed and some 30,000 Jewish men were
deported, PBS notes.
Here's what President Obama had to say:
Statement by the President on the 75th Anniversary of Kristallnacht
I join millions of people in the United States and around the world in marking the 75th anniversary of the tragedy of Kristallnacht – “the Night of Broken Glass.” On November 9 and 10, 1938, Nazi paramilitaries marched under the cover of darkness throughout the towns and villages of Germany and Austria smashing Jewish storefronts, arresting Jewish men en masse, ransacking Jewish homes, burning books and littering the streets with the parchment of sacred Judaic texts. Throughout the two-day wave of violence, hundreds of synagogues and thousands of businesses owned by Jews were destroyed or damaged. At least 91 Jews were killed, while another 30,000 were sent to concentration camps.
Kristallnacht foreshadowed the systematic slaughter of six million Jews and millions of other innocent victims. Seventy-five years later, Kristallnacht now signifies the tragic consequences of silence in the face of unmitigated hatred.
As we mark this anniversary, let us act in keeping with the lessons of that dark night by speaking out against anti-Semitism and intolerance, standing up to indifference, and re-committing ourselves to combatting prejudice and persecution wherever it exists. In so doing, we honor the memories of those killed and reaffirm that timeless call: “Never Again.”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/11/08/statement-president-75th-anniversary-kristallnacht
Click the embedded links above then take a look at photos from those fateful days HERE.
And so it goes.
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sobering thoughts. I met a man once with an arm tattoo; he spent his lifetime speaking in schools about the Holocaust, since he was a prison camp survivor. man's inhumanity to man; despicable.
ReplyDeletepowerful..... I am defintely speechless.
ReplyDeleteI did not know this; thank you.
ReplyDelete