Obama: 75th Kristallnacht anniversary a reminder of what silence in face of hatred can bring
Source: Jerusalem Post
US President Barack Obama marked the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht on Friday, saying that the 1938 pogrom in which Nazis burned synagogues and murdered Jews across Germany serves as an example of what silence in the face of hatred can bring.
"I join millions of people in the United States and around the world in marking the 75th anniversary of the tragedy of Kristallnacht the Night of Broken Glass, Obama stated.
"On November 9 and 10, 1938, Nazi paramilitaries marched under the cover of darkness throughout the towns and villages of Germany and Austria smashing Jewish storefronts, arresting Jewish men en masse, ransacking Jewish homes, burning books and littering the streets with the parchment of sacred Judaic texts," the US president stated.
"Throughout the two-day wave of violence, hundreds of synagogues and thousands of businesses owned by Jews were destroyed or damaged. At least 91 Jews were killed, while another 30,000 were sent to concentration camps," he continued.
Read more: Obama: 75th Kristallnacht anniversary a reminder of what silence in face of hatred can bring
From earlier today:
Statement by the President on the 75th Anniversary of Kristallnacht
I join millions of people in the United States and around the world in marking the 75th anniversary of the tragedy of Kristallnacht the Night of Broken Glass. On November 9 and 10, 1938, Nazi paramilitaries marched under the cover of darkness throughout the towns and villages of Germany and Austria smashing Jewish storefronts, arresting Jewish men en masse, ransacking Jewish homes, burning books and littering the streets with the parchment of sacred Judaic texts. Throughout the two-day wave of violence, hundreds of synagogues and thousands of businesses owned by Jews were destroyed or damaged. At least 91 Jews were killed, while another 30,000 were sent to concentration camps.
Kristallnacht foreshadowed the systematic slaughter of six million Jews and millions of other innocent victims. Seventy-five years later, Kristallnacht now signifies the tragic consequences of silence in the face of unmitigated hatred.
As we mark this anniversary, let us act in keeping with the lessons of that dark night by speaking out against anti-Semitism and intolerance, standing up to indifference, and re-committing ourselves to combatting prejudice and persecution wherever it exists. In so doing, we honor the memories of those killed and reaffirm that timeless call: Never Again.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/11/08/statement-president-75th-anniversary-kristallnacht
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024002844
Change has come
(2,372 posts)handmade34
(22,756 posts)(not on the scale, but) all too common these days
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)bananas
(27,509 posts)They knew what was coming
DissidentVoice
(813 posts)Unfortunately that mindset is still with us...probably to stay.
meti57b
(3,584 posts).... may their memory be for a blessing.
Victor_c3
(3,557 posts)Sadly, this was hardly more than the tip of what was to come.
BumRushDaShow
(128,890 posts)America will live up to its own similar tragedies - one notable one having occurred some 17 years before Kristallnacht, not in Europe, but right here in the U.S. in Tulsa, OK
Ever since the story was unearthed by historians and revealed in uncompromising detail in a state government report a decade ago it estimated that up to 300 people were killed and more than 8,000 left homeless the black men and women who lived through the events have watched with renewed hope as others worked for some type of justice on their behalf.
But even as the city observed the 90th anniversary this month, the efforts to secure recognition and compensation have produced a mixed record of success.
The riot will be taught for the first time in Tulsa public schools next year but remains absent in many history textbooks across the United States. Civic leaders built monuments to acknowledge the riot, including a new Reconciliation Park, but in the wake of failed legislative and legal attempts, no payments were ever delivered for what was lost.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/20/us/20tulsa.html?_r=0
R.I.P. to all victims of HATE everywhere in the world.
cntrygrl
(356 posts)for posting this. We should never forget or hide these stories. When I was a teenager during the '60s riots in north NJ I marched with the blacks. I was astonished to learn from my black friends the horrible reports coming up from the south. I run searches finding/learning what I can about the injustice(s) dealt out by my now race / heritage (German). Seems that the more I learned, the more angrier I got.
My wife's cousin, Chicano lawyer Francisco "Kiko" Martinez was murdered but no one had been charged. The authorities made life horrible for him and those who fought for equality.
Hatred isn't a trait we're born with. So may people claim to be religious but it seems to me their hearts are evil.
DonViejo
(60,536 posts)BERLIN (AP) Germans across the country are commemorating the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht the night of broken glass during which the Nazis staged a wave of attacks on Jews in Germany and Austria.
On Nov. 9, 1938, hundreds of synagogues were burned, numerous homes and Jewish-owned stores were ransacked, some 1,000 people were killed and more than 30,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps.
Germans in many cities and towns on Saturday are holding candle-light vigils, listening to Jewish survivors share memories and meeting at Jewish memories to remember the victims of Kristallnacht.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Kristallnacht was an event that humiliated Jews in an unbelievable way
a real low point in German history had been reached. She called on Germans to never forget the past.
###
http://www.salon.com/2013/11/09/germans_commemorate_1938s_night_of_broken_glass/
-----------------
IMHO, those are fairly unimpressive comments coming from Merkel, the occupant of the position once held by Hitler. Hopefully the AP reporter just did a lousy job of quoting her
LeftishBrit
(41,205 posts)Hassin Bin Sober
(26,325 posts)bananas
(27,509 posts)"Hey Torguemada, what's an Auto Da-Fe' ?"
"It's what you shouldn't-a done, but you did anyway!"
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)"auto de fe" literally is the "act of faith"
Behind the Aegis
(53,952 posts)One of the few comics/satirists that can take a deadly serious situation and make it side-splittingly funny. Bring on the Nuns!
DissidentVoice
(813 posts)"In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."
-- by Martin Niemöller, prominent German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor, best known as the author of the poem First they came....
JimboBillyBubbaBob
(1,389 posts)People of color,
People of differing sexual orientations,
People of varying socioeconomic statuses,
People of varying faith beliefs,
People of nontheism,
People of education,
People of science,
People that are just plain different from them.
On this site, and others, we will continue to speak up and speak out.
Do not be silent my friends........................
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)Beacool
(30,247 posts)The shame of the nation is that so few rose against the attacks on the Jews. Fear of the Nazis and pervasive anti-Semitism allowed these kinds of abuses to go on until the Final Solution became a reality.
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)Nowadays, it's "looking forward" past war crimes.
christx30
(6,241 posts)chuckstevens
(1,201 posts)1. Prescott Bush
2. Elise Koch
3. Karl Rove's Grandfather
If we had a press that actually did their job in this country and weren't such corporate whores, maybe more people would know the truth about the GOP Power's have evil roots.
Hekate
(90,648 posts)pampango
(24,692 posts)A Stolperstein (from German, "stumbling block" is a monument created by Gunter Demnig which commemorates a victim of the Holocaust. Stolpersteine are small, cobblestone-sized memorials for an individual victim of Nazism. They commemorate individuals both those who died and survivors who were consigned by the Nazis to prisons, euthanasia facilities, sterilization clinics, concentration camps, and extermination camps, as well as those who responded to persecution by emigrating or committing suicide.
While the vast majority of stolpersteine commemorate Jewish victims of the Holocaust, others have been placed for Sinti and Romani people (also called gypsies), homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, black people, Christians (both Protestants and Catholics) opposed to the Nazis, members of the Communist Party and the Resistance, military deserters, and the physically and mentally disabled.
Stolperstein No. 40,000: During his TEDxKOELN talk on May 14, 2013 Gunter Demnig announced the installation of the 40,000th. stolperstein on July 3, 2013 in Oldambt (Drieborg), Netherlands. It was one of the 10 Stolpersteine in memory of Dutch communists who were executed by the German occupation forces after they were betrayed by countrymen for hiding Jews and Roma.
Peoples attention is drawn towards the stolpersteine by reports in newspapers and their personal experience. Their thoughts are directed towards the victims. Cambridge historian, Joseph Pearson, argues that "It is not what is written [on the stolpersteine] which intrigues, because the inscription is insufficient to conjure a person. It is the emptiness, void, lack of information, the maw of the forgotten, which gives the monuments their power and lifts them from the banality of a statistic."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolperstein