The duty to learn and the need to remember
Mr. President of the Republic, Mr. President of B'nai B'rith, Mr. President of the New Israelite Congregation, national officials, and dear friends.
It is both an honor and a duty for me to be part of this important commemoration of the tragic events of November 1938. My interest in this subject is deeply personal. As many of you know, my mother, my uncle, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents all endured their own “Kristallnacht” during that tragic time, and many did not live to see the next day. Remembering is a challenge for families like ours. The dead cannot remember, and the living cannot forget…
The anniversary of Kristallnacht should not merely be an occasion for remembrance. It should be an occasion for self-reflection. An occasion to ask ourselves what we would have done if we had been in one of the many towns and cities in Germany or Austria where, at the same time, homes were being raided, synagogues set ablaze, and elderly people, men, women, and children were being pushed into the streets and robbed of their belongings. How could this have happened? What have we learned from that tragedy? Why is it important to learn from what happened?
What was Kristallnacht? The very name “Kristallnacht” is an example of the “euphemistic death” that the Nazis employed, much like the “Final Solution” or “Work sets you free.” The goal of Kristallnacht was not to target Jewish property; that was merely the surface. Kristallnacht was part of a campaign to strip Jews of their possessions. But the Nazis had already begun several years earlier to steal Jewish property, stripping them of their jobs, taking away their savings, and forcing them to sell their properties and businesses at rock-bottom prices. They could have continued the thefts and dispossessions without burning down every synagogue in the country, without involving thousands of non-Jewish neighbors, and without imprisoning thousands of people.
The aim of Kristallnacht was something else entirely—far more painful than theft or physical assault. Kristallnacht was a public ritual of humiliation for the Jews of the Reich. In every city and town across Germany and Austria, public acts were organized to degrade Jews of all ages and backgrounds. It was the next step in the process of dehumanizing Jews that began with the Nazi regime and was a necessary step for what was to come. It was also a step in the dehumanization of non-Jewish Germans, whom the Nazi regime sought to make accomplices and witnesses to its barbarism.
The Nazis prioritized the destruction of Jewish self-esteem and dignity far more than the theft and destruction of property. Kristallnacht served as a warning to the world that the Third Reich knew no bounds in its actions, and unfortunately, given the lack of international repercussions, it was clear that no one had either the ability or the will to set those limits.
The impact of Kristallnacht was devastating on the collective psyche of German Jews. Along with the shattered glass, the hopes of Jewish acceptance into German society were shattered as well.
One hundred thousand German Jews served in World War I; twelve thousand died in action, and eighteen thousand were awarded the War Cross. In a society like Germany’s, these are very significant symbols: decorated war veterans, scientists, and artists who had brought international distinction to Germany, and families who had lived in their cities and neighborhoods since the Middle Ages. All, without distinction, were discriminated against, stripped of their belongings, excluded from their jobs and professions, expelled from their homes, and finally, for the most part, murdered.
Suddenly, “the unthinkable” was happening. Even after five years of Nazi rule, what happened in the November 1938 pogrom was unthinkable for the Jews. As German citizens, their world was that of a society organized on the basis of the law, the right to protection of life and property. Even the Nazis themselves had been elected on a platform of law and order.
Suddenly, German Jews found themselves facing an unthinkable fusion of civilization and barbarism. Paramilitary gangs attacked homes, synagogues, and businesses with impunity, while thousands of neighbors took part in the violence and looting, and others looked on passively. Like Ray Bradbury’s firefighters in Fahrenheit 451, German firefighters did not put out the fires; they merely ensured that neighboring non-Jewish buildings did not catch fire. The police did not arrest the vandals; the police only made sure that the Jews could not escape.
All the hallmarks of a civilized society suddenly vanished at once. Kristallnacht was the great blackout of civilization. Kristallnacht was intended to make it clear to Jews and non-Jews alike that they were no longer part of the same world.
“Broken glass,” an expression possibly coined by Joseph Goebbels, carries powerful symbolism. It symbolizes the decay of buildings and, metaphorically, the decay of human communities. Broken glass refracts light, and this refraction produces two images, one on each side of the refracting surface. One was the perspective of non-Jewish Germans, and the other was that of the Jews. The ominous message of Kristallnacht is that it was no longer possible to belong to both categories; it was no longer possible to be Jewish and German, to be German and Jewish. Kristallnacht was the beginning of the end of Jewish life in Germany—first civic life, then community life, and finally physical life. The Nazis sought not only the death of the Jews, but the death of Judaism, while at the same time seeking the eternal life of the Reich.
How could Kristallnacht have happened? These are difficult questions to answer and painful to ask. How could a pogrom with tens of thousands of victims and perpetrators have taken place in the middle of the 20th century, in one of the most educated countries in the world? How could neighbors have stood by passively and watched the looting? How could most countries fail to offer refuge? Could countries like ours have done more to help? What would we do if we saw our lifelong neighbors dragged into the streets by paramilitary gangs and their homes destroyed? This ethical introspection must help us internalize the moral risk of inaction.
Why is it important to learn from what happened? The duty to learn is just as important as the need to remember. One cannot learn without remembering, but one can remember without learning. As the eminent historian Saul Friedländer says: “Ritual remembrance that does not challenge, that does not teach, is not a true tribute to the victims, nor is it a moral condemnation of the perpetrators.” Ritual remembrance is an “act of exorcism,” as if Kristallnacht or the Shoah were supernatural events with no human perpetrators or accomplices. Learning about what happened is necessary, though not sufficient to prevent similar tragedies. It is necessary to understand how far cruelty can go when it is not confronted; it is necessary to recognize and prepare for the consequences of defenselessness.
Learning about Kristallnacht is important because it shows us how prejudice can escalate into persecution, persecution into massacres, and massacres into genocide. It is important because it reminds us of the importance of recognizing and stopping these processes in their early stages—starting with our own minds and hearts, then extending to our families, our schools, our neighborhoods, our cities, and our country. Not all prejudice ends in genocide, but every genocide has begun with prejudice.
It is a mistake to view Kristallnacht as an event of the past disconnected from our own time. Although every historical situation is unique, the forces driving them are recurring. Intolerance, discrimination, dispossession, indifference, and organized massacres reached unimaginable proportions in Nazi Germany, but they also exist in our own time.
Consider, for example, the AMIA bombing in Argentina in 1994, which took place right here in our region. It was a barbaric attack against Jews in their most iconic building. Proportionally to the population, more Jews died in that attack than in Kristallnacht. According to the Argentine justice system, it was organized by a state, just as in Kristallnacht. Unlike Kristallnacht, for which 7,000 people were prosecuted, the AMIA crime remains unpunished.
What happened after Kristallnacht? The United States recalled its ambassador to Berlin but did not sever diplomatic relations. No country took diplomatic action or increased its immigration quotas, even though all diplomats accredited to Germany and Austria vividly described the excesses that had occurred. After Kristallnacht, it became clear that the Jews had no means to defend themselves, no allies, no escape routes, and no place of refuge. After November 1938, Jews were no longer looking for the best place to go; they were looking for any place to leave. As Haim Weizmann said: “For German Jews after Kristallnacht, the world was divided into two: countries that wanted to expel them and countries that did not want to receive them.”
We have a duty to learn from Kristallnacht and what followed: Wannsee, deportations, ghettos, concentration camps, extermination camps—like the circles of Dante’s Inferno. We must learn that we cannot remain indifferent to the fate of others. We must learn that all humans are part of a common fabric, and we must learn that we must never allow something like this to happen again. Never again defenseless, never again alone, never again divided.
Thank you, Mr. President, for joining us today. Thank you all for coming here today. Thank you to B’nai B’rith for continuing to light the candles of remembrance and hope.
Thank you very much.