Kristallnacht Commemoration
The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies would like to thank all who joined the online presentation of their annual Kristallnacht Commemoration on Monday 9 November 2020.
This presentation is now available for viewing and includes the interview with Dr Edith Eger, (pictured) Therapist, Speaker, Author and Auschwitz survivor.
Joanna Kalowski, in her interview with Dr Eger asks "What is the importance of commemoration and memorialisation? Why do we feel a deep need to commemorate such a terrible event?"
If you would like to watch the Commemoration or share with others please click here
The interview was edited for the Commemoration and the full version can be found here
Apology from Netherlands Protestant Churches re Kristallnacht
On the eve of Kristallnacht, the Protestant churches in the Netherlands released a statement regarding the Church’s complicity in the Holocaust and its expression of sorrow.
"We undertake to do everything possible to further develop Judeo-Christian relations into a deep friendship of two equal partners, united among others in the fight against contemporary anti-Semitism." Dr Rene de Reuver, Secretary, General Synod of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands.
pdf Read the apology statement (1.80 MB)
What is Kristallnacht?
On November 9 to November 10, 1938, in an incident known as “Kristallnacht”, Nazis in Germany torched synagogues, vandalized Jewish homes, schools and businesses and killed close to 100 Jews. In the aftermath of Kristallnacht, also called the “Night of Broken Glass,” some 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps. German Jews had been subjected to repressive policies since 1933, when Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) became chancellor of Germany. However, prior to Kristallnacht, these Nazi policies had been primarily nonviolent. After Kristallnacht, conditions for German Jews grew increasingly worse. During World War II (1939-45), Hitler and the Nazis implemented their so-called “Final Solution” to the what they referred to as the “Jewish problem,” and carried out the systematic murder of some 6 million European Jews in what came to be known as the Holocaust. (source: History.com)
