Rider connects with Germany for Kristallnacht ceremony

Rider University, in conjunction with The Office of the Governor and The New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education, will hold a commemoration event on November 10 for Kristallnacht – The Night of Broken Glass for the 75th anniversary of the tragedy.  The commemoration ceremony will be held in the Bart Luedeke Student Center Theater at 1 p.m.

Participants will also connect via Skype to a group from Lautertal, Germany, to discuss what took place 75 years ago.

On November 9, 1938, the Nazis destroyed synagogues, local shops and businesses, looted stores, ransacked homes and killed nearly 100 Jews with the support of state-sponsored programs. In addition, 30,000 other Jewish individuals were arrested and sent to concentration camps. The event was named for the glass that lined the streets following the attacks.

Dr. Harvey R. Kornberg, Director of the Julius and Dorothy Koppelman Holocaust/Genocide Resource Center at Rider University, stresses the importance of recognizing Kristallnacht on the Rider campus. “Kristallnacht is the beginning of the Holocaust," he says. "The nationwide pogrom unleashed by the Nazi leadership on November 9, 1938, throughout Germany indicated an important turning point, namely, that violence was not excluded by the Nazi leadership in their anti-Semitic program against the Jews.  The road to Auschwitz had begun.”