On This Day

Everybody--or, at least, everyone who is aware of major events in 20th century history--has heard of Kristallnacht. Translated as "Crystal Night" or "Night of Shattered Glass," it refers to the two-day convulsion of violence that broke out against Jews in Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia starting on November 9, 1938. Crystal Night is much too nice a euphemism for these riots, as explained here on the website of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.But I'm writing on October 28, not November 9, 1938. What happened on October 28 is an important part of my mother's story as told in The Year of Goodbyes. That day, a Friday, Nazi police raided homes throughout Germany--including Hamburg, where my mother (Jutta) and her family lived--arresting Ostjuden by the thousands and sending them by truck and train to the border with Poland. Who were Ostjuden? They were Jews, such as my mother's parents, Isaac and Rose Salzberg, who came from nations to the east of Germany, mainly Poland.Seventeen thousand Ostjuden were rounded up on October 28 and shipped to the border. The Polish government refused to let them in. The result: chaos and misery on the German-Poland border, with Jews stranded in railroad stations, sleeping in open fields, and crowded into camps.And so, what about the Salzbergs? They were Ostjuden. What about my mom?Here is what my mother's friend Ellen wrote in Mom's poesiealbum--her autograph album--the very next day:

“Hear much, say littleDo not complain to everyone.Steadfast in misfortune and in fortuneThese are the true masterpieces.To remember, and all the best for the future,Your friend,Ellen RiesenfeldOctober 29, 1938"

My mother and her sister and parents were lucky. They weren't sent to the border. They remained steadfast in misfortune and good fortune--as Ellen's poesie advised--but it wasn't easy. My mother had a distinct memory of hearing boots on the marble staircase--the Nazi police going to someone else's apartment. Click-clack-click-clack. It's in the book, in this chapter:So many others were not lucky, among them the parents and sister of a 17-year-old Jewish boy named Herschel Grynszpan. He was living in Paris at the time, and he received a postcard from his sister describing how she and her parents had been expelled from their home in Hanover, Germany, as part of the October 28 action and were now stuck in the cold on the boder. Grynszpan sought revenge by killing a German official at the German embassy in Paris. And that killing gave the Nazis a tidy if transparent excuse to egg their citizens on to the rage and hatred that resulted in the Kristallnacht pogroms little more than a week later.Refugees pushed up against unwelcoming borders. Young men turning to individual acts of violence in despair and powerlessness. Blame-mongering and blame-shifting. Demagogues spurring masses into a frenzy. Yeah, I'm still one of those who thinks Holocaust history is relevant to all of us.