Kristallnacht: November 9 - 10, 1938

Kristallnacht was the event in Germany in 1938 that set off the Holocaust. Thousands of store front windows of Jewish businesses were smashed during the nights of November 9 and November 10.  See more images of Kristallnacht from the United States Holocaust Museum:  http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/kristallnacht/photo/

Kristallnacht, Berlin 1938

The many thousands of broken plate glass windows resulted in the term Kristallnacht or Night of Broken Glass to describe the events of November 9 lasting into the early morning hours of the 10th. Although the Nazis didn't get the popular uprising they had hoped for, they did notice that the overall population of some 60 million Germans showed remarkable indifference toward this first mass persecution of the Jews. Those who were shocked or outraged knew enough to keep their thoughts to themselves or risk being sent to a concentration camp. Full story is here, from HISTORY PLACE.