4. REACTIONS | RESISTANCE | RESCUE ACTIONS 4.1 Newspapers' Report on the November Pogrom | 4.2 Refugee Politics in Europe | 4.3 Dare to Say NO | 4.4 Resistance | 4.5 Rescuers
This exercise contains articles from newspapers in Germany and the United Kingdom. By the end of this activiy you will have developed your ability to critically examine information from historical source materials and understand how historical events can be seen from different perspectives.
In this exercise you are going to read about the 1938 wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms. First read the description and then do the press analysis that follows.
The November Pogrom
The November pogrom (earlier often called Kristallnacht or Reichskristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass”) refers to the wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms mainly occurred on November 9 and 10, 1938. This wave of violence took place throughout Germany, annexed Austria, and in areas of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia recently occupied by German troops.
The violence was primarily instigated by Nazi Party officials and members of the SA (Sturmabteilungen: literally Assault Detachments, but commonly known as Storm Troopers) and the Hitler Youth.
Vom Rath was a German embassy official stationed in Paris. Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old Polish Jew, had shot the diplomat on 7 November 1938. A few days earlier, German authorities had expelled thousands of Jews living in Germany with Polish citizenship from the Reich. Grynszpan had received news that his parents and siblings, residents in Germany since 1911, were among them.
Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, a chief instigator of the Kristallnacht pogroms, suggested to the convened Nazi "Old Guard" that "World Jewry" had conspired to commit the assassination. He announced that “the Führer has decided that … demonstrations should not be prepared or organised by the Party, but insofar as they erupt spontaneously, they are not to be hampered.”
The rioters destroyed some 1 400 synagogues and prayer rooms throughout Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland. Many synagogues burned throughout the night in full view of the public and local firefighters, who had received orders to only intervene if the flames risked spreading to neighbouring “Aryan” buildings.
As the pogroms spread and following Reinhard Heydrich's instructions, units of the SS and Gestapo (Secret State Police) arrested up to 30 000 Jewish males and transferred most of them from local prisons to Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen and other concentration camps.
You are going to read a shortened and edited newspaper article reporting on Kristallnacht. The first one is from a German source, the second one is from the United Kingdom. Work in pairs and compare the reports. Then fill in the table that follows. Make sure you only read one of the two reports and that your partner reads the other one.
Download newspaper articles and table sheet
4.1.a If you are a registered user, please confirm: Did you fill in the table sheet (yes/no)?