On Sunday, the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Center in Jerusalem commemorated the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, “the night of broken glass,” when Nazi-fascists swept through Jewish towns and neighborhoods throughout Germany burning homes and synagogues, destroying shops, and attacking Jews.

The A Bruenn JR shop in Berlin was vandalized by Nazis and its front wall was inscribed with anti-Semitic graffiti during Kristallnacht (Photo: Archive)

Some 500 Jews were killed in the attacks. Over 30,000 were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Over 1,000 synagogues were burned down, and 7,000 Jewish businesses were destroyed or damaged. The term “Kristallnacht” refers to the shards of broken glass from the windows of shops and homes attacked by the Nazis who participated in the pogroms.

Hundreds of survivors, veterans of World War II battles and high school students gathered at Yad Vashem to hear survivors give their accounts of the devastation and terror of that night. Among the speakers was a leading member of the Communist Party of Israel, MK Dov Khenin (Hadash), who is the son of survivors.  “Auschwitz wasn’t made in one day,” he said at the commemoration. “There were many signs along the path.” The Kristallnacht pogroms were not “spontaneous,” he said, but were a planned event, designed as a milestone on the road to the destruction of European Jews, he said.