Witness to Kristallnacht, November 9-10, 1938
My name is Susette Tauber. I was born in Munich, Germany in 1929.
When I started school it was not possible anymore for Jewish children
to attend their neighborhood schools. Rather, all Jewish children in
Munich had to attend a Jewish school. From where I lived it took
about 20 minutes by streetcar to get to that school which was
adjacent to a Synagogue.
Remembering Kristallnacht
November 9-10, 1938
Shattered Glass, Shattered Lives:
Putting the Pieces Back Together
On the morning of November 10th, I started out as usual. We were
four Jewish students on that same streetcar. As we came to our stop
and got off, a teacher was standing there, looking very grim, and told
us sternly, "You children cross over to the homebound streetcar. Don't
talk; don't speak to anyone, be quiet and go straight home." We
could see fire engines in front of our school in action. The school was
adjacent to a Synagogue that had been set on fire during the
night. The Synagogue was supposed to burn, but not the school!
When I came home I told my mother what had happened. Within
about half an hour the doorbell rang and there were two men asking
for my father. They took him along (as we found out later to Dachau
concentration camp). All that day they picked up all Jewish men and
boys over 16 years of age whom they could find.
During the night the Nazis had smashed the display windows of
Jewish owned stores - thus the name "Kristallnacht." This happened
throughout Germany (and annexed Austria). The official excuse for
taking the men to camps was "Schutzhaftjude" (protective custody
Jew), using as an excuse the shooting of Vom Rath in Paris by
Greenspan incident. However to the men who were taken to Dachau
and three other camps throughout Germany that day, it was quite
obvious that these camps had been prepared for some time.
From then on the life for Jewish people in Germany became
progressively worse and unbearable in Germany and Austria; details
of that are well documented.
~ Susette Tauber, Holocaust Survivor
Wednesday, November 9, 2011CE
7-8:30 p.m.
Cascia Hall at Merrimack College
Center for the Study of
Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations
Witness to Kristallnacht, November 9-10, 1938
On November 9, 1938, I was not home in Berlin but about an hour
away in a place to learn Diet cooking (the word dietitian did not exist
then). Early in the morning my father called me and said come home
right away. He told me that Mister “S” could not say Kaddish this
morning. It did not make much sense to me, but I left school and
came home. The moment I was on the bus I saw what was going on.
All the Jewish stores were broken into and demolished. Glass from
the storefronts was shattered and everywhere on the streets. The
Shuls (synagogues) were burning and the air full of hate. I found my
parents very excited and planning. My father remained with us, even
though many men were arrested and put in concentration camps that
day. At this moment my father realized that we had to leave Germany
and the search began. We were lucky. We ended up in Shanghai
China.
~ Herta Shriner, Holocaust Survivor
Shattered Glass, Shattered Lives
Welcome
Dr. Joseph T. Kelley, Director
Remembering Kristallnacht, November 9-10, 1938
Rabbi Margaret Frisch Klein
Witnesses to history and injustice
Susette Tauber and Herta Shriner
Neha Patel
Anoid (Anna) Ndamba
Sokha Khieu
Robert Jackson
Dona Beavers
Pianist: Dr. Hugh Hinton
Soloist: Bethany Emerson
Glass Artist: Gloria Bensch
Putting the Pieces Back Together
Above photo: Shattered storefront of a Jewish-owned shop destroyed
during Kristallnacht . Berlin, Germany, November 10, 1938.
Cover photo: View of the destroyed interior of the Hechingen
synagogue the day after Kristallnacht. Courtesy USHMM
Please join us in crafting stepping stones from broken
glass in a gesture of healing and renewal
This program was made possible by a grant from
Roberta Braverman