Exactly 65 years later, Penn students are doing their part to make sure no one forgets.
Last night, well over 100 people turned out to hear noted Penn History Professor Thomas Childers speak about Kristallnacht, the "Night of the Broken Glass," on the anniversary of the Nov. 9, 1938 wave of terror against Jews living under the Nazi regime.
Childers described how shortly after Hitler became German chancellor in January 1933, a number of laws were passed to deny German Jews of basic rights. By the end of 1935, Jews had been stripped of their citizenship, banned from holding any civil service positions and forbidden from dating or marrying non-Jews, along with a boycott of Jewish-owned businesses.
Over the next few years, life in Germany became so unbearable that by early 1938, according to Childers, over 130,000 of Germany's 520,000 Jews had left the country.
"The spring of 1938 posed new problems for the Jews of Germany," Childers said.
In February, all German Jews of Russian descent were deported, and this was followed by the October expulsion of 17,000 Jews of Polish heritage.
"The public degradation and humiliation of whole families" sent shock waves throughout Germany "because it for the first time targeted women and children also," Childers said.
Yet, the shock waves, as strong as they may have been, could not have prepared Germany, or the world, for what would happen in early November.
Sometime after midnight on Nov. 9, an "orgy of violence was unleashed" on Jews in Germany and Austria, which was by then under Nazi control, according to Childers.
On that evening, Nazi-sponsored mobs burned over 1,000 synagogues, destroyed 7,500 Jewish-owned businesses and killed 91 people. Additionally, approximately 20,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps, he said.
Even to ordinary Germans, the damage and destruction of Kristallnacht was shocking. And to the Jewish community, the trauma of the Night of Broken Glass was immeasurable -- in Vienna alone, 680 Jews committed suicide.
"It was the end of the illusion for those who believed they could live with the anti-Semitism of this regime," Childers said.
To add further insult to injury, Nazi leaders blamed the Jews for the devastation inflicted during Kristallnacht. The Jewish community was even forced to pay a 1 billion mark indemnity.
College sophomore Dvora Wilensky, one of the lecture's organizers, stressed the importance of educating the community about the horror of Kristallnacht.
"We want to get word out on campus, beyond Hillel, so that it will be known what happened," Wilensky said.
College sophomore Megan Goldman seemed to echo Wilensky's assessment of the importance of Childers' lecture.
"As students, we often get caught up in the present, but events like this give us a reality check so that we can prevent the past from happening again."
