On the night of November 9โ10, 1938, Kristallnacht, also known as “The Night of Broken Glass,” occurred in Germany. This pivotal event marked the beginning of the systematic persecution that led to the deaths of six million European Jews. The Nazis cited the assassination of German official Ernst vom Rathโkilled in France by Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish teenager protesting his parents’ deportationโas justification for the violence.
The boycott/pogrom of Jewish synagogues, schools, businesses, and homes, resulting in the death of almost 200 Jewish people and the destruction of 7,500 properties, was well planned and anything but a reaction to the death of a German official. Additionally, 30,000 Jewish people were sent to concentration camps. Ethical historians agree that Kristallnacht was the onset of the Holocaust, shifting nazi antisemitism from mere rhetoric to pure violence. On that night, the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” was put in motion.
So, it is very important to remember Kristallnacht and tell our children about it, especially in light of current world events. We have seen an increase in acts of antisemitism worldwide, in several cases leading to the death of people in Europe and the United States. Antisemitism is now a reality on a daily basis. Remember: The events that led to Kristallnacht happened gradually, then suddenly!
By the mid-1930s, the Germans were already very organized. Hitler’s goal a Judenrein Germany and then Europe was well planned. First the Nuremberg Laws to cripple the Jews, then more regulations to force them out of civic service, government and society all together. Then came the ghettos to corral the Jews in restricted areas, but quickly it became hard to manage and too small to contain people, no matter what the conditions.
Jews had to be shipped away. They were put on trains and taken to a myriad of Labor and Concentration Camps, mostly in Eastern Europe. That too became burdensome and too slow, so Hitler instituted the Einsatzgruppen. A group of Nazi officers charged to mass murder Jews and stack them in big common graves, almost always dug by the very victims prior to their murder. Additionally, people were packed in sealed trucks and exhaust gas was pushed inside to asphyxiate them, but that also was too slow and “too burdensome for the Nazi soldiers.”
Death Camps like Buchenwald, Treblinka, and Auschwitz-Birkenau were put in place. The death factories became the most efficient way to murder millions of Jews very fast for very little. This process was put in place while the vast majority of Jews denied that it was happening, because how could men do such horrors to other men? When the Jewish communities of Europe realized that it was the gruesome truth, it was too late. Again, the events that led to the Holocaust happened gradually, then suddenly!
From the Ashes of the Holocaust, the Jewish people rose again like the ultimate phoenix of civilization. Within three years, the modern state of Israel was born, and the Jews who had started to flee Europe in the late 1880s, escaping the Pogroms and the Holocaust, now had a country to go to. Things were hopeful. Maybe antisemitism was dead. It was definitely taboo to speak of it…at least for two decades.
Then Yasir Arafat came onto the scene. An Egyptian national placed in the Middle East by the USSR, with the goal of destabilizing the region and going after Israel and the Jews. Overnight, just like that, the Palestinian people were born! Their country was instantly occupied and colonized by Jewsโso everyone was told! That narrative was planted; it took a while for it to germinate in Middle Eastern soil, but today it has become a solid tree with deep roots, even though the tree is not native to the land.
How about land for peace? Within a few decades and after several important wars, Israel kindly evacuated the Gaza Strip and gave it to the Palestinian Authority, who lost it to Hamas in 2005. A potentially beautiful Mediterranean Seafront areaโfinanced by the Westโbecame an underground maze of terror, slowly preparing for the day when they could attack Israel.
In the meantime, Israelis welcomed Arabs from the Strip on a daily basis as workers on their properties and homes. In many cases, Israelis drove โPalestiniansโ to doctors’ appointments. Trust was being built, finally! Or was it?
Unbeknownst to Israel, notes were being taken and details recorded patiently by Hamas operatives and other sympathizing Palestinians. The day of carnage came on October 7, 2023. One more time, the events that led to the bloodiest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust happened gradually, then suddenly!
Will we ever learn from history, or are we going to become a community in denial, hoping that the danger will cease or disappear? Are we corporately becoming the proverbial ostrich, as we put our heads in the sand of political correctness and multiculturalism? I warned of this 25 years ago as a watchman on the wall, but now it appears the walls of Western civilization are being breached, and they are crumbling fast.
The Jewish people need to wake up to reality. Outside of Israel, we are not wanted.
The Church needs to wake up as well, because the enemy of the “little Satan” is practicing on the Jews until it comes against us: the Big Satan.”
Our words against the lies and our actions against those who hurt Israel and soon will hurt Christians must be NOW. I do not mean violence in any way, but exposing of the lies… Yes, identifying the liars… yes, and educating others about the truth… Absolutely. In the meantime, let’s take time to personally reassure our Jewish friends that we have their backs.
Our involvement in all this cannot happen gradually, or we run the risk that we might wake up one day and it will suddenly be too late!
