DETROIT
Night of Broken Glass Recalled
As 'The Beginning Of Genocide'
ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
Assistant Editor
T
he memorial
ceremony began with
the reading of a prom-
ise, "God who guards you
will not slumber." On the
wall in the sanctuary hung
pictures of the dead: men,
women and children who
perished in the Holocaust.
This past Sunday, hun-
dreds of area residents met
at Young Israel of Southfield
to commemorate the 53rd
anniversary of Kristallnacht.
The ceremony featured the
dedication of a new plaque, as
well as poetry and prayer
recitations including the
opening reading, Psalm 121.
Kristallnacht began Nov.
9 when Nazis smashed
windows in thousands of
Jewish-owned businesses,
destroyed synagogues and
killed hundreds of Jews.
They claimed their act was
"repayment" for the murder
of German Secretary of
Legation Ernst vom Rath,
though later the rampage
was shown to be a long-
planned, well-organized act.
Herschel Grynszpan, a
young German Jew living in
France, killed Vom Rath on
Nov. 7, 1938. Having just
heard the Nazis had forced
his parents to leave their
home, Mr. Grynszpan shot
vom Rath in an attempt to
draw attention to the plight
of Jews under Hitler.
Hans Weinmann, a
speaker at Sunday's pro-
gram, said the significance
of Kristallnacht lies not only
in the events that happened
that day, but in the fact that
the "Night of Broken Glass"
stands as a precursor to even
more terrible atrocities.
"It was the beginning of
genocide," said Mr. Wein-
mann, a docent at the Holo-
caust Memorial Center in
West Bloomfield.
Mr. Weinmann said the
Nazis knew they could get
away with mistreatment of
Jews because of events just
months before Kristallnacht.
On July 15, 1938, 33 Western
nations, called together by
the United States, met at
Evian, France, to address
anti-Semitism in Germany.
"No major country was
willing to change immigra-
tion quotas, no major coun-
try was willing to do
anything for the Jews in
Germany," he said. "It
became obvious no other
country in the world was in-
terested in what was hap-
pening to the Jews."
Mr. Weinmann recalled
the night Nazis came to ar-
Martin Lowenberg with the new plaque commemorating victims of the
Holocaust.
rest his father. The family
pleaded with them, telling
them the father was a World
War I veteran and a high-
ranking officer with the
Austrian army.
After 53 Years, Reunion Of Frankfurt Jews
Berlin Jew who also spent
the war years in New York,
have twice returned to Ger-
many in the last 10 years.
"We had mixed feelings,"
Mrs. Beigel admits. The
couple visited cemeteries in
East Berlin and in
Frankfurt and found family
graves in remarkably good
condition. The Berlin
cemetery, with 120,000
graves, was overgrown with
trees and had many damag-
ed gravesites. Mrs. Beigel
said her husband "couldn't
get wait to get back to
America and kiss th.e
ground."
ALAN HITSKY
Associate Editor
ILIP
rsala Beigel had a
school reunion last
weekend. After 53
years and the Holocaust, it
was an emotional experi-
ence.
Mrs. Beigel of West Bloom-
field was one of 360 persons
associated with Frankfurt,
Germany's Philanthropin
School who reunited in the
Catskills on the anniversary
of the school's closing —
Kristallnacht.
"The last day of class was
Nov. 10, the day after
Kristallnacht," Mrs. Beigel
said. Kristallnacht was the
Night of Broken Glass in
Germany in 1938, when
Nazi thugs burned syn-
agogues, beat Jews and
looted and shattered
windows of hundreds of Jew-
ish-owned stores.
"I remember walking
home from school with a
girlfriend, and then not see-
ing her again," Mrs. Beigel
said. A week later, on her
14th birthday, Mrs. Beigel
and her family were on the
German steamer
Deutschland, bound for New
York.
Few of the Jews at the
reunion were survivors of
Nazi concentration camps.
Mrs. Beigel said the
Frankfurt Jewish commun-
ity was prosperous before
Kristallnacht and most were
14
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1991
Mrs. Beigel of West Bloomfield looks at the reunion booklet.
able to get out of Germany.
But one person attending
the reunion had survived 10
camps.
Mrs. Beigel's family, the
Schiffs, owned a department
store in the Frankfurt
suburb of Hoechst. After the
war, the Schiffs received
compensation from the West
German government. "It
wasn't a lot," Mrs. Beigel
said, "but it made them com-
fortable when they retired."
Their six-story building is
still in use as a department
store.
The reunion last weekend
was an informal affair at
Kutsher's Country Club.
The former Philanthropin
students spent the weekend
reminiscing. On Saturday,
the group had a memorial
service for those who did not
survive the Hitler era and
heard a 45-minute audiotape
from a Philanthropin
teacher, Dr. Herman Weil,
who escaped to America and
was a dean at the University
of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Mrs. Beigel has kept in
touch with some of her
schoolmates over the years.
A couple now living in
Chicago are her best friends,
and she stays in contact with
classmates living in Miami.
Mrs. Beigel owned a chain
of knit shops in the Detroit
area. She and her husband, a
Nine of the 30 students in
Mrs. Beigel's class attended
the reunion; she found a
schoolmate who lived
around the block in
Frankfurt whom she had not
seen since 1938. Though she
did not attend, the girl who
walked home with Mrs.
Beigel the day after
Kristallnacht is reported to
be living in Germany. She
had married a Communist
during the war and survived
in the Soviet Union.
The Philanthropin reunion
may be repeated in a few
years. Mrs. Beigel said the
Frankfurt city government
will be asked to sponsor the
event. In addition, German
Television videotaped much
of last weekend's events and
is expected to broadcast the
reunion in Germany. ❑
"But that didn't make any
difference," Mr. Weinmann
said. "They simply said they
had orders to arrest my
father because he was a
je Swtu
."dents at Akiva Hebrew
Day School gave readings
about Herschel Grynszpan,
who was eventually
deported to Germany where
he disappeared, and about
the Holocaust. Two teen-
agers, Gaven Lakritz and
Sara Peterson, read original
poems.
After the ceremony
visitors stopped to study the
posters on the walls, which
told of the horrors of
Kristallnacht and the Holo-
caust. Among the pictures: a
Nazi kicking an elderly Jew
and Jewish children starv-
ing to death.
The program concluded
with the dedication of a pla
que, listing names of in-
dividuals who perished in
the Holocaust. Designed by
Martin Lowenberg of
Southfield, the plaque com-
prises eight Stars of David
and the word zachor, , re-
member. It was dedicated by
the Morris Weiss family, the
Dr. Joseph Mantel family
and Mr. and Mrs. Vilmos
Czuckermann.
Men, women and children
stood around the plaque,
singing "Ani Ma'amin," ("I
Believe"), which many Jews
sang on their way to the gas
chambers: "I believe with
complete faith in the coming
of the Messiah, and though
he may tarry, nevertheless, I
anticipate every day that he
will coma"
One woman, standing in
the center of the group, did
not join in. Unable even to
sing, she wept silently, her
small hands clasped tightly
to her heart. ❑