Jewish groups throughout the nation solemnly marked the 40th anniversary of the infamous Kristallnacht–the night of broken glass — the first mass manifestation of Nazi brutality against German Jews and an ominous portent of the Holocaust that was to come.
Kristallnacht occurred during the night of Nov. 9-10, 1938 when Nazi-inspired mobs pillaged and destroyed Jewish homes, businesses and institutions throughout the Reich. As Philip M. Klutznick, president of the World Jewish Congress noted in a statement released yesterday, “Tens of thousands (of Jews) were arrested and sent to concentration camps and many of those who were not arrested were subjected to humiliation and assault.
“Today, Kristallnacht is largely forgotten by the world,” Klutznick said, “and tragically even the Holocaust that followed is in danger of being forgotten. Indeed, there are even attempts being mode to deny that the Holocaust actually took place. The Jewish people must not allow the world to forget the Holocaust or to permit future Kristallnachts,” he said.
He warned that “forty years after Kristallnacht, anti-Semitism has re-emerged as a threat and no Jewish community anywhere can feel itself impervious to its menace.” Klutznick appealed, on behalf of the WJC “to all governments and peoples to remember Kristallnacht and what followed it, not to permit those who committee murder and crimes against humanity to escape punishment and not to allow democracy to shelter those who have no purpose other than its subversion.”
SURVIVORS URGE OBSERVANCE
The American Federation of Jewish Fighters, Camp Inmates and Nazi Victims also issued a call for observance of the 40th anniversary of Kristallnacht as a “time for reflection on the past, a time to be alert to any form of anti-Semitism, and a time to renew a vigorous commitment for the future that there never be another Holocaust.” Solomon Zynstein, president of the organization, noted that 40 years after the Holocaust, there are many ominous signs, “too many incidents of neo-Nazism across the globe for us to remain calm.”
The Kristallnacht anniversary was commemorated at a United Jewish Appeal-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies Joint Campaign dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria here last night. Today a group called The Generation After, an organization of young adults, many of them children of Holocaust survivors, demonstrated outside the West German Mission to the United Nations. They protested against the statute of limitations on the prosecution of Nazi war criminals which goes into effect in Germany at the end of 1979.
The Jewish Community Relations Council of New York conducted a candlelight ceremony at the Isaiah Wall opposite United Nations headquarters here tonight to mark the Kristallnacht anniversary. It also called on the West German authorities to extend the statute of limitations. Meanwhile, it was announced that Dr. Curt C. Silberman, president of the American Federation of Jews from Central Europe and co-chairman of the Council of Jews from Germany, has been invited by the city of Wuerzburg, West Germany, to deliver a memorial address at public meeting sponsored by the city on Nov. 14. He will speak on “The Lesson of the Kristallnacht.”
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