Kristallnacht 2020

[Cannot seem to embed YouTube video so please have a look via this link:  Kristallnacht]

My father was in Berlin during Kristallnacht. Actually, his family had been warned about the possible pogrom and had gone into hiding in the attic of a house in the suburbs. They were there with about 10 other people, for quite a few days. The video above gives a brief version of what happened next. For the rest of his story, the Museum of Jewish Heritage in NYC features "Albert's Story" as an educational tool in their Shoah curriculum. You can see more of it here.

To be honest, my father never talked that much about his experiences. He always said that he would answer any questions that we had. The problem for me was, I didn't know which questions to ask. With regard to Kristallnacht, the most striking part of his story for me was always when he spoke about going back home after it was (supposedly) all over. The family travelled separately, and my father was with his father, Alex. He told me how he could feel the shards of glass as he walked along the street, he could feel them through his shoes. And he said that there was a moment in the U-Bahn when he lost hold of his father's hand. That is the memory that sticks with me, the feeling in that instant.

Today, this date also marks the moment when I went to the German Embassy in London with my mother 3 years ago and we reclaimed our German citizenship. It was not a conscious choice to have the appointment that day, yet it made sense that it was then that a smidgeon of something we had lost was returned to us. 

We mourn what cannot be restored, and we are hopeful that a new chapter of healing is now possible. There's a lot to do - let's get busy!