Start of Kristallnacht

Date: November 9, 1938 • Location: Munich, Germany

This milestone marked the outbreak and beginning of this historic period, which spanned 1938.

Kristallnacht began as SA stormtroopers and civilians destroyed and ransacked Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues in Germany and Austria, resulting in at least 90 deaths and the deportation of 30,000 men to concentration camps.

Kristallnacht (German: [kʁɪsˈtalnaχt] ; lit. 'crystal night') or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (German: Novemberpogrome ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's Sturmabteilung (SA) and Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilians throughout Nazi Germany on 9–10 November 1938. The German authorities looked on without intervening. The euphemistic name Kristallnacht comes from the shards of broken glass that littered the streets after the windows of Jewish-owned stores, buildings, and synagogues were smashed. The pretext for the attacks was the assassination, on 9 November 1938, of the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old German-born Polish Jew living in Paris.