Remembrances of the

“KRISTALL NACHT”

 

In the morning of the day after the Kristall Nacht (“Night of broken Glass”) 9-10th November 1938 when Jewish owned shops had months earlier been compelled to write in very large letters on their shop windows that they were Jewish, had these shop windows smashed.  We had also had a phone-call to say that the Reform Synagogue (where my father was one of three and by far the most active "Vorsitzender”  – administrators) was on fire.

 

My parents sent me to my (Jewish) school 'as usual' because my parents did not want me to be at home should the Gestapo come to arrest my father. When I left home I already knew something about what had already happened

 

On the way to school I passed a small sweet-shop which was not Jewish owned - and I saw the lady who owned the shop weeping, because of what was happening. When I came back in the afternoon she was still (or again) weeping.

 

That morning I also passed a Jewish cloths shop and a larger Jewish owned chocolate shop both of which had their windows smashed - but when I passed that morning a policemen stood there and seemed to want to prevent looting.

 

A lot of my classmates appeared to be at the school when I got there - I remember that some attempt was made to have lessons.

 

From the time I arrived back home, through the night and the following day my parents took one phone-call after another from people who wanted to let someone know that their husbands, fathers, sons etc. had been arrested: and the Synagogue office was either not functioning because of fire or just could not cope with the number of calls. My mother took some of the calls to help my father and my parents made lists of the victims.

 

We still tried to resume something like normal life.

 

The other bit that remember well was about 2 weeks later. On my mother's suggestion, since on my way to school I had to go past the home of an Uncle (who we knew had been arrested), to see my aunt (I was just 12 years old!). Whilst I was there the uncle and another man arrived - they had been released from a Concentration Camp - and their state - very ill looking, their heads shaven, and very dirty and torn clothing was such that I as a 12 year old thought that they would never be able to recover.

 

At the aunt's suggestion I just left.

                                                                                                                                                      Ernst Michaelis 22.10.2018