Kristallnacht

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Today is the 69th Anniversary of Kristallnacht. Kristallnacht, also known as Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht and “The Night of Broken Glass”, was a massive nation-wide pogrom in Germany on the night of November 9, 1938 including the early hours of the following day and was directed at Jewish citizens throughout Germany, the newly acquired territories of Austria and Sudetenland. Germans freely attacked Jews in the street, in their homes and at their places of work and worship. On those two days, this pogrom damaged, and in many cases destroyed, about 1574 synagogues (constituting nearly all Germany had), many Jewish cemeteries, more than

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Today in Jewish History – Cheshvan 20

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Sponsored by Aish.com: Yahrtzeit of Hannah Szenes (1921-1944), a young Israeli woman who volunteered to parachute behind Nazi lines on behalf of the British Army. She spent three months in Yugoslavia working with partisan resistance fighters, but was caught when she attempted to cross the border into Hungary. She was tortured for several months, but refused to divulge any information. Szenes became a symbol of idealism and self-sacrifice, an image strengthened by the stirring set of poems she left behind. She was executed by firing squad in Budapest, and her remains were later brought to Israel.

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Today in Jewish History – Cheshvan 18

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I was stunned when I first read this, not having heard of the Madagascar Plan prior to this. Sponsored by Aish.com: In 1938, Nazi leader Hermann Goering announced that in order to “solve the problem of the Jews,” the African island of Madagascar was being considered as a giant ghetto for 4 million European Jews. The plan was seriously considered by Hitler in May 1940, in his discussions with Mussolini and Nazi officials. Hitler’s idea was that the Jews would play the role of hostages, as a way to prevent the United States from entering the war. The Madagascar Plan

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Systematic mass murder of Jews detailed in huge Nazi archive

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From Ha’aretz: Twenty days of systematic murder of prisoners in the Majdanek concentration camp are detailed in a thick office binder in the huge archive of Nazi documents in this central German city. The binder contains hundreds of pages written on both sides. Each one has a table containing the following information: first name, last name, date of birth, address, date of death – all written out in a careful longhand. The blue ink has faded over the years, but the Jewish names jump out. Lists upon lists of towns and cities throughout Poland, Czechoslovakia and Germany. In the last

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Today in Jewish History – Tishrei 11

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Sponsored by Aish.com: In 1941, SS Chief Helmut Knochen ordered the systematic destruction of synagogues in Paris. During this time the Vichy government established other anti-Jewish measures, including the requirement that all Jews wear a yellow badge. Roundups took place in Paris where tens of thousands of Jews were arrested and handed over to the Nazis. Of an estimated 350,000 Jews who lived in France, 25 percent were murdered in the Holocaust. While many were sent to Auschwitz, there were also concentration camps located inside France, such as Gurs.

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Today in Jewish History – Tishrei 9

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Sponsored by Aish.com: In 1941, the Nazis carried out executions at Babi Yar, as thousands of Jews were buried in a ravine near the Ukrainian city of Kiev. The Nazis had instructed all 175,000 Jews of Kiev to report to the cemetery. Most thought they would be deported. Yet the Nazis killed the Jews in retaliation for a series of bombings against German installations (though a secret Russian agency was actually responsible). With the aid of Ukrainian citizens, 35,000 Jews were ordered to undress, beaten if they resisted, and then shot at the edge of the Babi Yar gorge. Many

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Today in Jewish History – Elul 22

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Sponsored by Aish.com: In 1939, during the Polish September Campaign, the Nazis occupied Krakow, Poland, a thriving Jewish community of 70,000 Jews. Jews were consigned to forced labor, and all Jews were required to wear identifying armbands. Synagogues were ordered closed and all their valuables turned over to Nazi authorities. In May 1940, the Nazis ordered a massive deportation of Jews from the city, leaving only 15,000 behind in Krakow’s Jewish ghetto, crammed into 3,000 rooms. German businessman Oskar Schindler came to Krakow to take advantage of the ghetto labor, and subsequently worked furiously to save Jews, as portrayed in

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Israeli Museum Launches Looted Holocaust Art Database

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From Israeli Museum Launches Looted Holocaust Art Database: Israel’s national museum has launched an Internet catalog of more than 1,000 pieces of art looted by the Nazis to allow Holocaust survivors and their heirs to identify and reclaim property. The pieces include drawings, Judaica items and paintings – several of them worth millions of dollars – that were plundered by German troops, recovered by the Allies in postwar Europe and later transferred to Israel.

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