On 9 and 10 November 1938, Nazis throughout Germany, Austria, and Sudetenland (in the current Czech Republic) took action against Jews. They humiliated Jews in parades, abused them and put them in concentration camps. They also destroyed Jewish property. Such violent attacks on Jews are called pogroms.
The Kristallnacht proves that Jews have no future in Germany
Nov. 9, 1938 Germany
Because of the many broken windows, this particular pogrom is called the Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. Synagogues were set on fire and the fire department was not allowed to put the fires out. The Jews had to pay for the damage themselves and were fined a total of 1 billion Reichsmark by the government.
The immediate cause of the Kristallnacht was the murder of a German diplomat in Paris by Herschel Grynszpan. It was his way to avenge the ill-treatment of his family, Polish Jews who had been living in Germany for 27 years and who had recently been deported to Poland by the Gestapo (the secret German police).
The Kristallnacht showed how the Nazi hatred of the Jews had turned into aggression and persecution - and how hardly anyone stood up for the Jews.