COMMENTARY: They haven’t forgotten Kristallnacht; neither can we

c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon in Naples, Fla.; the type of “Chamber of Commerce” day perfect for golf, tennis, swimming, jogging or vegging out on the beach. But more than 500 Christians and Jews set aside those activities and filled the sanctuary of Temple Shalom to commemorate a […]

c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon in Naples, Fla.; the type of “Chamber of Commerce” day perfect for golf, tennis, swimming, jogging or vegging out on the beach.

But more than 500 Christians and Jews set aside those activities and filled the sanctuary of Temple Shalom to commemorate a catastrophe that happened long ago and far away: “Kristallnacht,” the murderous anti-Jewish attack “Night of Shattered Glass” in Germany and Austria.


Catholic scholar Mary C. Boys from New York’s Union Theological Seminary delivered the keynote address and her opening words gripped the interfaith audience.

“There is a distinctive sound that instantly commands our attention, the shattering of glass. On Nov. 9-10, 1938, mobs provoked by Nazis broke store windows, looted shops, and set fire to synagogues.

“Imagine the terror as glass exploded in every direction. Kristallnacht was by no means the first pogrom in which Jews went to their deaths and suffered destruction of property; we could recite a long litany of violence against Jews over the centuries. But Kristallnacht bears special remembrance, as it was both a portent and a prelude to the Holocaust.”

Boys, a member of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary congregation, did not take the easy way out and try to excuse or minimize Christian culpability for the mass murder of 6 million Jews. Instead, drawing upon decades of rich scholarship, Boys wondered, “How was it that in (Germany), a country with a majority of citizens either Lutheran or Roman Catholic, that Nazi ideology took root?”

She answered her own question by asserting that a major factor was the longstanding belief that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus. “This accusation became theological hate speech,” she said. “It is clear the Nazis drew significantly on the Christ-killer myth in the curriculum of German schools.”

She quoted from a 1938 textbook used in German schools: “Children, look here! The Man who hangs on the Cross was one of the great enemies of the Jews of all time. … When you see the Cross, think of the terrible murder by the Jews on Golgotha. Remember … Jews are children of the Devil.”

Of course, the Nazi textbook never mentioned that Jesus himself was a Jew who was born, lived and died in the Land of Israel.


Boys lamented that German bishops and the Vatican, “while critical of some aspects of Nazi belief,” nonetheless “voiced no objection” to the German boycott of Jewish businesses, nor did they protest the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws of 1935. She cited a 1997 statement by French bishops that confessed an “anti-Jewish tradition (had) stamped its mark on Christian doctrine and teaching,” resulting in “a venomous plant of hatred for the Jews.”

A better response, she said, was found decades later, in Billings, Mont., in 1993, when a brick was hurled through the bedroom window of a 6-year-old Jewish child who had displayed a menorah. “By the end of December,” she said, “more than 10,000 people in Billings had menorahs in their windows.”

Five survivors of Kristallnacht were present for the commemoration. Two of them told of their personal experiences as youngsters in Vienna and Berlin during that horrific “Night of the Shattered Glass.”

Neither the bright Florida sunshine nor the passage of years has dimmed their memories, and for that we can all be grateful.

(Rabbi Rudin, the American Jewish Committee’s senior interreligious adviser, is the author of the recently published book “The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right’s Plans for the Rest of Us.”)

KRE DS END RUDIN600 words

A photo of Rabbi Rudin is available via https://religionnews.com.

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