Kristallnacht, American Style!
It is the eighty-fifth anniversary of Kristallnacht (Night of broken glass) in Nazi Germany. "Spontaneous" demonstrations against Jewish businesses, homes, synagogues and other examples of Jewish culture were encouraged by the Nazi government. Books purported to be examples of "Jewish Intellectualism," looted from Jewish-owned bookstores and the public libraries, were also burned in huge bonfires. The resultant vandalism produced so much broken glass in Germany and Austria (which had been annexed to the Reich that spring) that the glass manufacturers in the Netherlands and Belgium were unable to meet the demand for orders to replace the glass before the outbreak of the war. Apart from the vandalism, there was also the violence that was inflicted on the Jewish people in Germany that night, who either objected to the destruction of their property or simply managed to fall into the hands of antisemitic mobs. More than thirty-thousand Jewish men and women were arrested