The disaster did not occur overnight

Germany observes a day of remembrance for the victims of the 1938 pogroms. This reflection examines the precursors to Kristallnacht and underscores why the state's contemporary response to antisemitism remains critically significant.

On the night of November 9–10, 1938, synagogues burned across Germany and annexed Austria. Fire brigades were deployed solely to prevent flames from spreading to adjacent properties, while police were instructed not to intervene against the rioters, focusing instead on arresting Jewish citizens.

The Genesis of State Persecution

Nearly six years elapsed between Adolf Hitler’s ascent to power and the November pogroms. On April 1, 1933, the Nazi regime orchestrated a nationwide boycott of Jewish-owned businesses. Although it lasted only a single day, and many Germans continued to patronize Jewish vendors, systemic exclusion quickly followed.

Within days, new legislation provided the legal mechanism to purge Jewish individuals from the civil service.

By September 1935, the Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their citizenship rights and banned marriages and relationships with those classified as possessing "German or related blood." A person's ancestry decisively dictated their employment opportunities, personal relationships, and fundamental legal rights.

Following the Anschluss in March 1938, persecution escalated dramatically across Austria. Austrian Nazis and sympathizers carried out public beatings and humiliations. Within days, Jewish-owned businesses in Vienna were forcibly seized. By May, authorities established a dedicated agency to institutionalize this dispossession under state control. The policy of "Aryanization" entailed the forced transfer of Jewish assets to designated "Aryans." Owners were coerced into forfeiting their enterprises for a fraction of their value, with the proceeds diverted to frozen bank accounts. Numerous businesses were shuttered, while others generated revenue for their new state-appointed proprietors.

In November, the Nazi leadership seized upon the assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by seventeen-year-old Herschel Grynszpan in Paris as a pretext for coordinated violence. State propaganda portrayed the onslaught as a spontaneous public reaction, though directives were systematically transmitted through party and police command channels. In Vienna, violence raged for days, resulting in the destruction or burning of 42 synagogues and prayer halls. Across the Reich, approximately 26,000 Jewish men were deported to concentration camps. On November 12, the regime imposed a collective fine of one billion Reichsmarks on the Jewish population and confiscated insurance settlements for the damaged property—compelling the victims to pay for state-orchestrated destruction.

The Holocaust by Bullets

The designation "Kristallnacht" endures in collective memory, evoking the sound of shattered storefronts. In its aftermath, many Jews recognized that their future in the Reich had been eradicated, prompting a desperate search for nations willing to offer asylum. For countless individuals, foreign borders remained permanently closed.

Following Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, paramilitary death squads initiated mass exterminations across the occupied territories. By late summer, entire Jewish communities—men, women, and children—were systematically murdered. This phase of the genocide is known as the "Holocaust by Bullets."

For my family, this history is inextricably linked to Khislavichi, a small settlement in the Smolensk region where my grandfather, Naum, was born. In 1939, more than 1,400 Jewish residents lived there. During the German occupation, over fifty of my relatives were murdered in Khislavichi.

The initial mass execution in Khislavichi occurred in the autumn of 1941. In March 1942, during the liquidation of the ghetto, local collaborationist police operating under German command forced residents from their dwellings. They were executed in a nearby ravine—a site where, as family memory recalls, local children had once gathered mushrooms and played.

Throughout the occupied Soviet territories, German authorities leveraged local collaborators to execute the genocide. Some tracked down individuals in hiding, while others escorted victims to execution sites or participated in the shootings directly. Among the casualties were their former neighbors.

The Catastrophe was not an unforeseen calamity striking without warning. It unfolded methodically, propelled by institutional decisions that required architects and executors at every stage. An observer witnessing the boycott of a Jewish shop in 1933 could hardly foresee the mass graves of the occupied Smolensk region. Yet even then, the marginalization of one's neighbor and the state's active complicity were clearly visible.

The Modern Precedent

Contemporary data across multiple jurisdictions illustrates the gravity of the current threat environment. In Germany, the RIAS monitoring network recorded 178 assaults and four cases of extreme violence in 2025. In the United Kingdom, the Community Security Trust documented 170 assaults alongside four instances of extreme violence, including a terrorist attack outside a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur. While reporting methodologies differ by country, the aggregate number of documented antisemitic incidents in the UK in 2025 more than doubled compared to 2022 levels.

These figures raise pressing questions for any constitutional state: What occurs when an individual reports an assault or targeted threat? Does law enforcement identify and establish the motive behind the targeting? How do state institutions and civic bodies address efforts to victimize individuals based on their identity? Two recent incidents in the United States illustrate differing manifestations of these challenges.

In October 2026, federal prosecutors in the United States indicted Anna Mochalova, the 2012 "Beauty of Russia" Perm regional pageant winner, on two counts of hate crimes. According to the indictment, she assaulted two men in Manhattan with a sharp, needle-like weapon, deliberately selecting them because they were Jewish. One of the victims was publicly identifiable as an observant Jew by his attire.

On November 8, on the eve of the anniversary of Kristallnacht, a cycling demonstration in Philadelphia called for a boycott of six Jewish-owned establishments, ostensibly framed as an act of solidarity with Palestinians. The Mayor of Philadelphia and the Attorney General of Pennsylvania condemned the boycott. In response, local citizens mobilized to support the targeted restaurants and cafes, with lines extending outside several venues.

The Mandate of Protection

The establishment of the State of Israel provided the Jewish people with the sovereign capacity to grant refuge to the displaced and to defend themselves by their own means. Today, certain actors explicitly seek the destruction of Israel. The events of October 7, 2023, demonstrated what this existential threat entails in practice. Hamas and affiliated armed factions assaulted Israeli communities, murdered civilians, and abducted hostages. Shortly thereafter, Hamas political bureau member Ghazi Hamad stated that such attacks would be repeated systematically until Israel is eradicated.

The policies of the Israeli government are, and must remain, subject to legitimate scrutiny and debate. Citizens of Israel have the fundamental right to demand that their government adhere strictly to domestic statute and international law. This adherence is vital primarily for Israel itself, as the rule of law underpins institutional legitimacy and safeguards open civil discourse even during armed conflict. Israel maintains both the right and the legal obligation to defend its citizenry within the parameters of international law, regardless of external diplomatic consensus. International tribunals tasked with reviewing allegations against Israel must exercise absolute impartiality and adjudicate solely upon evidentiary merits. When political considerations determine judicial outcomes prior to the examination of facts, the integrity of the judicial institution itself is compromised.

When reflecting upon my family members murdered in Khislavichi, I am confronted with the fundamental question they faced: "Who will protect us?" Their survival hinged entirely on the answer. Every sovereign state bears an inescapable duty to guarantee the security of its citizens. For Jewish people across the world, this duty represents the assurance that they may operate a business, walk the streets wearing a kippah, or celebrate Hanukkah with their children without fear of persecution.