A Day to Remember by Rita Kramer
Throughout Europe today if you listen carefully you can hear echoes of the sound of shattering glass.
On November 9, 1938, a date that came to be known as Kristallnacht, the full fury of the Nazi campaign against the Jews of Germany reached its climax with attacks on Jewish storefront windows, Jewish houses of worship, and Jewish bodies of men, women, and children.
The nightmare had not come out of the blue. Repressive measures against Jews had been building since Hitler took power in 1933. By stages, Jews had been forbidden the use of public spaces, fired from professions such as teaching, and relieved of their businesses. They were beaten and spat on in public and would soon be subject to the final solution. Those who were lucky enough to get out in time were few. Unwanted almost everywhere, they had no haven and nowhere to go except for the fortunate few who had relatives willing to assume financial responsibility for them and countries willing to grant them visas.
When World War II ended the world seemed to take pity on the surviving remnant of European Jewry but it still required unprecedented effort for Jews to achieve their own state—Israel, a haven, just in case Never Again should become a meaningless slogan.
Some Jews remained in the countries of Europe and chose to rebuild their lives there with varying degrees of success. Antisemitism was not dead—Jew hatred simply evolved into Israel hatred.
And now, seventy years after the end of the Second World War, waves of Muslim migrants are washing ashore in the countries of Europe. How long before their numbers enable them to take over their host countries? How long before Europe hears again the sounds of breaking glass and breaking hearts and bodies?
How long before we know the answers to these questions?
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