The Never-Ending Night of Glass

This first paper is a response to an interview by Harry J. Abraham expressing his concerns about Kristallnacht reoccurring and we are just ignoring the signs.

The Never-Ending Night of Glass

For my second response paper I chose to focus on the Harry Abraham interview’s on Blackboard. In the interviews he discussed a wide variety of topics but one remark that stood out to me the most is where Harry expressed a fear that events like Kristallnacht could occur again and he is able to see similarities between then and now. In recent years there has been a rise of anti-Semitic acts committed against Jewish people around the world. In the following pages I will look at the treatment of Jewish people before and leading up to Kristallnacht, Harry Abraham’s concerns of an event like Kristallnacht happening again and use current anti-Semitic events in the news to see what similarities there could be.

Beginning in 1933 Jewish people living in Germany were required to become submissive to restrictive policies put in place when Adolf Hitler came to power. From 1933 through November 9, 1938 despite being subject to restrictive policies that isolated them from the rest of society the policies were largely non-violent. After November 1938 though that changed. According to an article History.com has regarding Kristallnacht these limitations only became more restrictive. “By the end of 1938 Jews were prohibited from schools and most public places in Germany and conditions only worsened from there.” As conditions worsened life for Jewish individuals became more fearful because they didn’t know what was going to happen. After Kristallnacht over 30,000 men were taken and sent to different concentration camps where they were worked to death or violently killed.

In Dr. Kevin Ostoyich’s 2017 interview with Harry Abraham and Inge Berkey one of the concerns that Harry addresses is the reoccurrence of an event like Kristallnacht happening again because he sees similarities in recent public events that people ignored leading up to Kristallnacht. In talking about how the Holocaust is commemorated Harry Abraham remarked “Like I showed you on Kristallnacht on the 50^th that that’s not really properly portrayed any importance that I feel it should have, because if that would have been recognized and reacted to at that time we wouldn’t be talking maybe about Shanghai Jews or the Holocaust or anything and  some of that I’m getting off the subject I’m seeing repeated now in the world stage just a few years after all this happened” (Harry J. Abraham and Inge Berkey Interview). The idea of another event like Kristallnacht occurring is not only on the minds of Jewish survivors but other individuals are worried about anti-Semitic actions against Jewish people in the present day.

According to recent posts on the New York Times’s website throughout various parts of New York different groups of Jewish individuals are being targeted in violent acts, and Orthodox Jews are primarily being targeted. Various community leaders have expressed concern that the attacks are reminding them of anti-Semitic acts in recent years in Europe where Jews were killed in Germany. Rabbi David Niederman who is the president of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn believes that the United States was in a dreamland because he like other community leaders never thought something like the Holocaust could happen here. “We thought the things that happen in Europe would never happen in the United States and definitely not in New York City,” (Ny Times). The community leaders believe that the attacks are caused by gentrification of African-americans and Jewish communities in New York.

Besides the attacks on Jewish individuals in New York, there have also been attacks in Germany, both of which came from attackers identifying on the far-right. In Germany the attack took place on February 18, 2020 in Hanau, which is a city located near Frankfurt, Germany. According to German prosecutors the individual behind the shooting doesn’t have a pre-existing history of criminal acts but he has posted xenophobic conspiracy theories on the internet in the past. The gunman went to different Shisha bars and shot 9 people in total. In a CNN news article in response to this event and other violent acts in Germany the Foreign Minister Heiko Maas addressed the right-wing attacks and called the attack in Hanau the third right-wing murder attack in Germany in a year if the suspicions are correct. “Right-wing terrorism has again become a threat to our country. There is absolutely nothing to put into perspective. (CNN News) In addition to the attack in Hanau, other public figures in Germany have voiced concerns that they have asked for government officials to start fighting back against these attacks because they were warned about the potential for terror attacks. But the warnings were ignored, and the attacks are only going to keep happening.

German leaders aren’t the only ones concerned about the rise of anti-Semitic attacks in Germany or anywhere else in the world reoccurring this is one thing that has been on the mind of Harry Abraham for a bit of time now. During the interview upon his expression of concerns of events like Kristallnacht happening again he kept repeating that the events leading up to Kristallnacht were being played out and they are only being again. In the interview Harry tells Dr. Ostoyich “Certain things happening in the world and people just standing by and not doing anything you know really anything about it”. Later in the interview Harry raises a point that even today people inside of the Jewish community is ignoring reality in one way or another and that is their own personal perspective. Between events happening in recent years throughout the world in respect to Jewish individuals and the concerns that Harry has of similar events happening again it seems to be something that everyone regardless of where you live needs to start thinking about. One of the main messages you can take away from the words Harry Abraham said and various news outlets reporting on attacks is that when things like this start being voiced in the public stratum that you can’t ignore them anymore. 

If the concerns Harry and other refugees has are true that an event like Kristallnacht has the potential to occur again would it follow the same pattern as the events after Kristallnacht? Would it be something worse? Would it only impact Jewish people in Germany, or would it affect Jewish people worldwide? I think one of the questions you need to think about when thinking about the possibility of another similar Holocaust event occurring is if another event like Kristallnacht and the Holocaust were going to occur who would be at fault and what would that mean for the rest of the world? It’s definitely a scary thing to think about, no one wants to face the possibility that another Holocaust could happen.

As a community within the United States and nations around the world this seems to be something that everyone should start paying more attention to because we would hate to let something like Kristallnacht and the Holocaust occur once again. If the speculations are true with the rise of anti-Semitic acts against Jews are on the rise again then everyone should be more aware of what led up to the Holocaust. Having that awareness can help the nation start to point out similarities between acts leading up to Kristallnacht and the Holocaust and recent attacks committed on Jewish individuals around the world currently can stop the reoccurrence of potentially “another” Kristallnacht and another “Holocaust”.

The only way that anyone can prevent events like Kristallnacht and the Holocaust from reoccurring is to take the time to study what kind of acts led up to the events and become more proactive about recognizing what is happening. No one really wants to think about the possibility that another Holocaust could occur. But it needs to be something that people are proactive about recognizing or the possibility could very well become a reality before it is too late to do anything about it. From listening to Harry’s interview and reading recent stories in the news about anti-Semitic acts it seems safe to say that everyone needs to become a little more aware of what is going on around them and being able to recognize something before it escalates out of hand.