WASHINGTON (JTA) — An anonymous poster said in a lawsuit to have spurred the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, a year ago went by the name “kristall.night,” an apparent reference to a notorious Nazi pogrom.
A subpoena demanding the poster’s identity, which a federal judge in California allowed to go forward this week, came from the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against march organizers. The plaintiffs say they were physically harmed or psychologically traumatized by the march.
Bigoted messages by the female poster were revealed in court filings, NPR reported. In a series of messages. kristall.night advised the neo-Nazi and white supremacist marchers to bring helmets and shields, and not to use weapons to which they were not accustomed. She recommended using flagpoles as weapons.
The marchers violently clashed with a small segment of the counterprotesters, and there were incidents of neo-Nazis seeking out counterprotesters and beating them. The march culminated in a deadly car-ramming attack by a neo-Nazi on counterprotesters.
The woman, who is not a defendant, also posted bigoted statements including “Without complicit whites, Jews wouldn’t be a problem” and “I hate miscegenation so much more after actually talking to mixed race people about their identity.”
The plaintiffs want her personal information to better understand how the violence spread. The judge ruled that it be revealed, but only to a small coterie of people attached to the case.
“kristall.night” is likely a play on Kristallnacht, the Nazi-led assault on Jewish homes, synagogues and businesses throughout Germany that killed at least 91 Jews on Nov. 9-10, 1938. It translates into English as the “Night of Broken Glass.”
Tha anonymous poster said she did not want her name to be revealed, fearing it would ruin her life. Others who participated in last year’s march who have been exposed have lost their jobs.
