9th-10th November 1938 - Kristallnacht/Reichskristallnacht/Reichspogromnacht
Early reports estimated that 91 Jews were murdered during the attacks.
Modern analysis of German scholarly sources by historians such as Sir Richard Evans puts the number much higher. When deaths from post-arrest maltreatment and subsequent suicides are included, the death toll climbs into the hundreds.
267 synagogues throughout Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland and over 7,000 Jewish businesses were either destroyed or damaged.
11th November 1918
The war killed almost 7 million civilians and 10 million military personnel.
I am the son and grandson of Refugees - WW1 and WW2 - tell story (briefly of WW1 and WW2) - my story.
Connection with this week's Parasha:
Who were the first (Jewish) Refugees?
Yitzchak and Yaakov
(12) Isaac sowed in that land and reaped a hundredfold the same year. The LORD blessed him, (13) and the man grew richer and richer until he was very wealthy: (14) he acquired flocks and herds, and a large household, so that the Philistines envied him. (15) And the Philistines stopped up all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham, filling them with earth. (16) And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you have become far too big for us.” (17) So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the wadi of Gerar, where he settled.
(42) When the words of her older son Esau were reported to Rebekah, she sent for her younger son Jacob and said to him, “Your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you. (43) Now, my son, listen to me. Flee at once to Haran, to my brother Laban. (44) Stay with him a while, until your brother’s fury subsides— (45) until your brother’s anger against you subsides—and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will fetch you from there.....
2nd December 1938 - the first Kindertransport of 200 children arrives in Harwich.
How many children were told the same thing by their parents as they were put onto the trains to take them them to this country? How heavy was the price that the servicemen on this country paid to ensure that the refugees had a safe country to live in?
Yet...despite everything, the refugees survived and ended up making a huge contribution to the the developement of this country after the war:
Sir Ludwig Guttmann - founder of the Paralympic Games
Sir Rudolf Bing - Founder of Glyndebourne and Co-Founder of the Edinburgh Festival
Lord Frank Schon, the Chairman of the National Research Development Corporation who used his position to improve working conditions for industrial workers
Andrew Sachs - Manuel in Fawlty Towers
The refugees managed to turn their lives around....look at how Yaakov ended up being the father of the 12 tribes!
Finish with my story - the son and grandson of refugees who had his barmitzvah at the Kotel. The same location where 2000 years ago, it seemed as though Judaism was finished - nearly 2000 years after the Jews were made refugees in the Roman empire (this year is 1948 years since the churban bayit sheni)