JERUSALEM, Israel – Israel on Tuesday commemorated 83 years since Kristallnacht, or the “Night of Broken Glass,” when the Nazis, alongside ordinary Germans, terrorized Jews across Austria and Germany on Nov. 9, 1938.
During the pogroms, the Nazis killed at least 91 people, vandalized around 7,500 Jewish businesses and burned more than 1,400 synagogues. The broken glass refers to the piles of glass that were left after the Nazis smashed the windows of Jewish homes and businesses.
To commemorate the event, the March of the Living – a Holocaust educational program – launched an initiative called “Let There Be Light,” which sought to unify the world against racism by asking people to keep the lights on in their personal homes and houses of worship on the night of Nov. 9.
“Over the last year we have witnessed a frightening rise of global antisemitic rhetoric and events,” International March of the Living President Phyllis Greenberg Heideman said in a statement.
“As the torchbearer of memory, the March of the Living’s mission is to remind the world what happens when antisemitism is left unchecked.”
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Israeli President Isaac Herzog participated in the event, which featured messages from Holocaust survivors and other world leaders. These messages were projected onto the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City and public buildings in Paris, Thessaloniki, Warsaw, and Budapest.
“The night of Kristallnacht heralded the crossing of a fateful line, the signal to relinquish all restraint,” he said. “In one night, an underlying sentiment of anti-Semitism became the overt expression of the many. We are committed to fighting and uprooting every conception of anti-Semitism. We will continue to do all we can to remember, memorialize, and ensure that such horrific events are a thing of the past, and the past alone.”
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