KRISTALLNACHT, 9 NOV 1938

80 years ago on 9 November the horror that would become known as the Holocaust came roaring out of the shadows in Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland to become open, official policy of the third reich, consuming not only 6 million Jews but 11 million others deemed not worthy of life by the nazis. While the term Holocaust generally refers to the systematic mass murder of the Jewish people in German-occupied Europe, the Nazis also murdered a large number of non-Jewish people who were also considered subhuman (Untermenschen) or undesirable. Some victims belonged to several categories targeted for extermination, e.g. an assimilated Jew who was a member of a communist party or someone of Jewish ancestry who identified as one of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Non-Jewish victims of Nazism included Slavs (e.g. Russians, Poles, Ukrainians and Serbs), Romanis (gypsies), French, Belgians, Dutch, Greeks, Italians (after 1943), LGBT people (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender); the mentally or physically disabled, mentally ill; Soviet POWs, Roman Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox Christians, Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, Spanish Republicans, Freemasons, people of color (especially the Afro-German Mischlinge, called "Rhineland Bastards" by Hitler and the Nazi regime); leftists, communists, trade unionists, capitalists, social democrats, socialists, anarchists, and every other minority or dissident not considered Aryan (Herrenvolk, or part of the "master race") as well as those who disagreed with the Nazi regime

What is so horrifying is the death of these 17 million people was not enough to prevent state sanctioned genocide / mass murder being carried out after WW II in too many countries including Russia, the prc, Tibet, Cambodia, Rwanda, Serbian Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sudan and Myanmar to name some of the worst occurrences. 

Kristallnacht, November 9, 1938

On the night of November 9, 1938, violent anti-Jewish demonstrations broke out across Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. Nazi officials depicted the riots as justified reactions to the assassination of German foreign official Ernst vom Rath, who had been shot two days earlier by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year old Polish Jew distraught over the deportation of his family from Germany.

Over the next 48 hours, violent mobs, spurred by antisemitic exhortations from Nazi officials, destroyed hundreds of synagogues, burning or desecrating Jewish religious artifacts along the way. Acting on orders from Gestapo headquarters, police officers and firefighters did nothing to prevent the destruction. All told, approximately 7,500 Jewish-owned businesses, homes, and schools were plundered, and 91 Jews were murdered. An additional 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Nazi officials immediately claimed that the Jews themselves were to blame for the riots, and a fine of one billion reichsmarks (about $400 million at 1938 rates) was imposed on the German Jewish community.

The Nazis came to call the event Kristallnacht (“Crystal Night,” or, “The Night of Broken Glass”), referring to the thousands of shattered windows that littered the streets afterwards, but the euphemism does not convey the full brutality of the event. Kristallnacht was a turning point in the history of the Third Reich, marking the shift from antisemitic rhetoric and legislation to the violent, aggressive anti-Jewish measures that would culminate with the Holocaust.

Ilie Wacs And Deborah Strobin, Holocaust Survivors, Search For SS Officer Alois, Who Saved Their Family On Kristallnacht 8NOV13

KRISTALLNACHT, it is a word that conjures images of violence, hate, hitler, nazis, Jews, the Holocaust, WW II, and maybe still a bit of fear of those who survived the horrors of that night, that time. Here is a story of a man, a ss nazi, who had the morals to protect a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria, and the survivor's search to find him or his family. From HuffPost....

Ilie Wacs and Deborah Strobin will never forget the terror they felt as they hid inside their apartment in Austria while the sound of Nazi boots drew closer on November 9th and 10th in 1938. They didn't make a sound on the fateful night of Kristallnacht, known to many Jews as "The Night of Broken Glass," but their silence wasn't the only reason that they and their family were spared from the violence.
Their deliverance came in an unexpected form -- that of a young Nazi SS officer named Alois, who worked for their father, Mortiz Wachs, at his tailoring business in Vienna. Alois alerted the Wachs of the upcoming pogrom, and urged them to leave Austria before August 31, 1939, which was the day before Germany invaded Poland and World War II broke out.
Wacs, who was eleven at the time, recalls how Alois' protection helped them remain safe on Kristallnacht in the book, "An Uncommon Journey," that he co-authored with his sister, Deborah Strobin:

Alois came to our house. His tone was quite grave, and he convinced Papa that something terrible was going to happen. I could tell it was dangerous for him even to be seen in our home. He told Papa, “Gather your family tonight. Tell them to come here. Keep everyone inside. You will not be touched.” ...
Our building did not have an elevator, only stone steps. I stood inside the door, and I heard hobnail boots coming up, click, click, click, and click. I heard men’s voices. I heard the boots stop at our door, and then I heard them move on. They never even knocked. We were passed over. We were shielded by Alois. We were saved.

The family managed to escape into Italy, then to Shanghai, and the siblings now reside in New York City. They've recounted their family history in their book, "An Uncommon Journey," but one question remains unanswered-- what happened to Alois? Wacs and Strobin are on a mission to find him with the little information that they have, so they can honor him with the title of "Righteous Gentile."
Wacs told The Huffington Post that if he found Alois or his descendants, "I would thank him for saving our lives." He continued, "To me, it is somewhat of a mystery why a person would be willing to sacrifice his family-- because that was what was at stake! But some people did it. If we do find him, he would deservedly be one of the Righteous Gentiles."
He shared more thoughts about his experience, remarking that many people ask him questions about what he thinks is the moral of the story.
In response, Wacs said, "There is no moral. Life is random. Survival is primarily a matter of luck. We survived because of that man, but if that man hadn't been around, we wouldn't have survived. It's difficult to draw moral conclusions."
Recalling how he and his family stayed alive, Wacs commented, "The only thing I keep saying, is that the only thing you can do in situations like that, is to be optimistic."
The siblings will share their story on November 10th at the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, marking the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht. This follows an art opening on Thursday, November 7th, at the Museum of Tolerance New York, which will host a month-long showing of Wac's artwork. The exhibit, "A Gathering Storm: The Vienna Papers, 1938" is a collection that draws inspiration from the official documents associated with their lives and identities.
See family photos as well as selected art from Wacs here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/08/ilie-wacs-deborah-strobin_n_4235460.html#next_slideshow

The Situation of Christians in the Middle East -- A Declaration of Concern 9SEP13

THE violence against Christians and other religious minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia is increasing. There is legislation in the US House, HR 301, and a petition at http://wh.gov/lDtCG that will require Pres Obama to appoint a State Department Special Envoy to Promote Religious Freedom of Religious Minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia. This from HuffPost, and there is much more on this in my previous post Anti-Christian terror is everyone’s concern & PETITION TO APPOINT A STATE DEPT SPECIAL ENVOY TO PROMOTE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM OF RELIGIOUS MINORITIES IN THE NEAR EAST & SOUTH CENTRAL ASIA24OKT13 http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/anti-christian-terror-is-everyones.html

The Metropolitans of Aleppo in Syria, Mar Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim and Boulos (Paul) Yazigi were abducted April 22nd, 2013 by 'unknown persons' and their fate is still in question.
This repulsive event is just one of many serious examples of the increasing persecution that Christians are now experiencing in the Middle East.
Over the past year I have been working with Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, Archbishop of Vienna, and "Pro Oriente" in Vienna, Austria. Today Cardinal Christoph Schonborn in his capacity as chairman of the "Pro Oriente" Foundation's board of trustees together with the Patriarchs Youhanna X (Antiochan Orthodox), Ignatius Zakka I Iwas (Syriac Orthodox), Gregorios III Laham (Melkite greek Catholic), Louis Raphael I Sako (Chaldean Catholic), Mar Dinkha IV (Assyrian), Nerses Bedros XIX (Armenian Catholic) published a joint declaration on the situation of Christians in the Middle East.
The unprecedented nature of this collective statement of Patriarchs and Cardinal is testimony to the extreme situations in which Christians in the Middle East now find themselves.
The precise wording of the declaration is as follows:

In deep concern regarding the situation of the Christians - and of all the people in the Middle Eastern countries where Christianity originated - we turn to the governments of those countries, to the leaders of religious communities, to international and regional organisations, and to representatives of civil society, that they may undertake everything in their power :

~ to obtain the immediate release of the kidnapped Metropolitans of Aleppo - and beyond this of all those who have been kidnapped in Syria,

~ to refuse the logic of violence and adopt the logic of dialogue,

~ to respect the sovereignty and unity of the States and to reject any illegal external military intervention,

~ to make it possible to return for all those who have been driven out of their homes or have had to flee,

~ to bring the suffering of the peoples and the conflict in Syria - which is also endangering the security and stability of the neighboring countries - to an end as quickly as possible through negotiations between all those involved,

~ to establish a political order in the Middle East which guarantees full respect of all human rights and thereby also religious liberty and freedom of conscience, but also full civil rights and equality for all the inhabitants of these countries.

The Christians in the Middle East are an essential and indispensable element of society. We are certain that in the future, too, they will contribute to building up a society characterised by peace, mutual respect and respect of human rights together with their fellow citizens who belong to other religious communities or have different political alignments.

With this in mind, we are united in prayer and in our efforts for a humane and dignified future with all Christians and people of good will.

I hope you will help me share this message with your friends and colleagues around the world.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wolfgang-danspeckgruber/christian-persecution-middle-east_b_3895980.html

Anti-Christian terror is everyone’s concern & PETITION TO APPOINT A STATE DEPT SPECIAL ENVOY TO PROMOTE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM OF RELIGIOUS MINORITIES IN THE NEAR EAST & SOUTH CENTRAL ASIA24OKT13

THIS is something our government, including the Obama administration, has been tolerant of for decades. The answer is not intolerance of other religions, or no religion, here in the U.S. Our Constitution guarantees each person the freedom of religion in the 1st Amendment. That was included because of the persecution of various religions of the emigres to the colonies and the religious violence among various Christian sects that was occurring in America while our Founding Fathers struggled with independence and nation building ( see my page on this blog The Great Debate of Our Season & ORIGINAL INTENT, GOD AND COUNTRY from MOTHER JONES DEZ2005 updated 21APR12 http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/p/original-intent-god-and-country-from.html  ). IT is time for the American government to stop ignoring the persecution, the terrorizing of Christians in countries around the world. This is a religious rights issue as well as a violation of the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and any foreign government's sanctioned and / or tolerated discrimination against, persecution of, terrorizing of that nation's Christian community must be publicly challenged by the our government. Please sign the petition at http://wh.gov/lDtCG for a State Dept envoy to be appointed and then take the time to contact your Representative at http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and your Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm and Pres Obama at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact and tell them to pass HR 301 in the House and Senate, and baring passage of the bill tell Pres Obama to appoint a State Department Special Envoy to Promote Religious Freedom of Religious Minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia. From the Washington Post.....

• By Steven B. Nasatir

• October 24 at 9:15 am

An Egyptian woman mourns during the funeral of several Copt Christians who were killed in Warraq’s Virgin Mary church in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013. Egypt’s Christians were stunned Monday by a drive-by shooting in which masked gunmen sprayed a wedding party outside a Cairo church with automatic weapons fire, killing several, including two young girls, in an attack that raised fears of a nascent insurgency by extremists after the military’s ouster of the president and a crackdown on Islamists. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

The persecution of any religious minority anywhere by anyone is an evil injustice. It requires all persons of conscience to speak out and, when possible, take action.
The upcoming 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht makes this an auspicious time to raise awareness about the contemporary violence targeting religious minorities and their places of worship. Of particular concern are attacks against Christian minorities that have occurred with alarming frequency from Syria to Egypt, from Iraq to Pakistan, and from Kenya to Sudan.
November 9 marks 75 years since the pogrom against Jews committed by mobs throughout the Nazi Reich. Often called Kristallnacht, or the “Night of Broken Glass,” when rioters killed or injured hundreds of Jews; burned over 1,000 synagogues; destroyed 7,000 Jewish-owned shops and businesses; vandalized cemeteries and schools, and; sent 30,000 Jews to German concentration camps. It marked a turning point in the escalating campaign of persecution culminating in the Holocaust.
These events, seared into Jewish collective memory, make us doubly aware—and duty bound—to raise our voices when the deadly brew of religious bigotry and wanton violence are mixed.
Today in Syria, a once thriving Christian population—a community nearly as ancient as that country’s once great Jewish community—has been depopulated by 25 percent, according an estimate the Patriarch Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch Gregorios III Laham shared with the BBC.
In September, The Associated Press reported that Syrian Christians in Maaloula—a community dating to the birth of Christianity and that still speaks Aramaic—were driven out or forcibly converted to Islam by rebels aligned with al-Qaeda.
“It is chaos, it is violence, it is blood, it is death. Life has been paralyzed. We have lost everything,” said Archbishop Theophile Georges Kassab of Homs.
In Egypt, some supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi last summer unleashed their rage against that nation’s Christians, a historic community constituting 20 percent of the country’s population. Mobs burned dozens of Christian schools, convents, monasteries, institutions, and churches of any, and all Christian denominations. And just days ago, gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire outside a Coptic Christian church during a wedding, murdering four, including an 8-year-old girl.
“It never happened before in history that such a big number of churches were attacked on one day,” Bishop Thomas, a Coptic Orthodox bishop in Assiut told Al Jazeera. “We normally used to have attacks once a month or so.”
As Kristallnacht teaches, the burning of houses of worship can be a red alert that worse is yet to come. September saw the horrific Taliban bombing of Anglican worshippers in Pakistan, which took 85 lives, and, according to accounts shared by witnesses, the targeting for murder of Kenyan Christians—deliberately separated from others in a chilling reminder of Nazi “selections”—by al Shabaab terrorists in a Nairobi shopping mall.
Attacks like these have contributed to a decline in the Christian population in the Middle East and North Africa from 9.5 percent to 3.8 percent of the total population from 1910 to 2010, according to a Pew Forum report on Global Christianity.
Tellingly, Israel is the only Middle East country where the Christian population has grown in the last half century, from 34,000 to 158,000, in large measure, according to many observers, because of the religious freedoms enjoyed there.
As a Jew, I’m proud of the status of religious minorities in the Jewish state. As an American, I’m especially proud to live in a society where people of different faiths (and no faith) share the values of tolerance and coexistence. Despite isolated though sometimes deadly instances of religiously-inspired terror during the past few decades, ours is a nation where no Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, or person of any other faith must live in fear because of who they are.
It is time to sound the alarm about the religious persecutions of Christians and others. Let us raise our voices, and call on our elected representatives to take action. People of all faiths should support passage of H.R.301, legislation that would direct our President to appoint a State Department Special Envoy to Promote Religious Freedom of Religious Minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia.
The bill will facilitate U.S government responses to human rights violations, combat acts of religious intolerance and incitement targeting religious minorities, and help address the needs of religious minorities.
Further, we must demand that international institutions designed to protect human rights, especially the United Nations, must actually do so without prejudice.
For people of conscience, for people of all faiths, now is not the time to be silent.
Steven B. Nasatir is president of the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/wp/2013/10/24/anti-christian-terror-is-everyones-concern/?wprss=rss_on-faith&clsrd