This year, the German Film Awards were dominated by "Oh Boy." In the movie, an elderly stranger confesses to a young Berliner he meets in a bar that, as a boy, he watched his father join a mob to smash the windows of Jewish-owned businesses, including that very bar.
The mysterious old man was recalling Kristallnacht, a Nazi-instigated overnight rampage in which some 1,000 synagogues and 7,000 Jewish-owned businesses were destroyed in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. At least 91 Jews were killed. Instead of arresting the perpetrators of this mass violence, the Nazis rounded up 30,000 Jews and sent them to concentration camps. The night of Nov. 9, 1938, marked the Nazis' transition from discrimination to genocide.
The German film reflects a reality we need to face: that, on this 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, nearly every living witness to the "night of broken glass" viewed the horrible event through the eyes of a child. And before long, these witnesses will also be gone. We will still have museums, memorials and books to teach the world about Kristallnacht, but how do we apply its lessons?
We should remember Kristallnacht by fighting hatred, racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Romaphobia and all other bigotry. We should protect the state of Israel so that Jews, unlike in 1938, have a homeland. And we should defend the right of persecuted people to seek and be granted asylum. There was no such right in November 1938. Victims of Nazi persecution were trapped. Even if they managed to flee the Nazis, the countries to which they fled could send them right back.
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