Light Up The Church

April 2025: Kristallnacht News Update

Thank you again for signing the Kristallnacht declaration. Every month we send a few stories about Kristallnacht and the Holocaust that made the news in the previous month. Towards November 2025 we will share information about Light Up The Church 2025.

Below is the update from the stories of April 2025.

  • Holocaust survivor speaks in Spokane

    Holocaust survivor Pina Frassineti Wax, honored at age 100 by Senator Chuck Schumer, shared how she and her family hid in a convent during World War II, with her brother disguising as a nun to avoid Nazi detection. Despite facing severe illness, she survived thanks to her mother’s efforts, while many relatives perished in concentration camps. Wax later became a U.S. professor and urged people to fight hate and remember the Holocaust.

  • Grandson of Holocaust survivors to meet grandson of top Nazi officer

    Kai Höss discovered in fifth grade that he was related to Rudolf Höss, the notorious Auschwitz commandant, after seeing the name in a history book. The realization deeply disturbed him and led to years of grappling with the horrific legacy. Now 63, Kai has chosen to confront and speak about his family's past.

  • Yad Vashem brings to life 5,000 Jewish communities lost in the Holocaust

    Yad Vashem has launched a new audiovisual installation at the Valley of the Communities, using light, sound, and animation to honor over 5,000 Jewish communities destroyed or affected by the Holocaust. The exhibit, funded by the EU, projects stories onto the rock walls and includes survivor testimonies to preserve the memory of these once-thriving communities. Spanning 2.5 acres with 107 engraved stone walls, it aims to educate future generations and celebrate Jewish cultural heritage.

  • ‘I don’t want to speak of hatred.’ Child Holocaust survivor and grandson share story of persistence, finding joy in the aftermath of tragedy

    At just 10 years old, Joseph Berger had survived bombings, Nazi interrogations, and the horrors of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. A Hungarian Jew, he and his family fled multiple countries during World War II, enduring unimaginable trauma. Berger shared his powerful story during a Holocaust survivor lecture at Northeastern University, interviewed by his grandson Noah Ben-Zion.

  • Holocaust survivors gather for Passover in Chicago's north suburbs

    Pina Frassineti Wax, a 100-year-old Holocaust survivor, was honored on Long Island for her extraordinary resilience during World War II. As a teenager, she, her mother, and brother hid in a Catholic convent in Rome to escape Nazi persecution; her brother even disguised himself as a nun to avoid detection. Senator Chuck Schumer presented her with a U.S. Capitol flag flown in her honor, recognizing her as a "living legend" ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

  • Denver holocaust survivor remembered

    Sara Moses, a Holocaust survivor who endured the horrors of Bergen-Belsen as a child, passed away on March 30, 2025, at the age of 86 in Denver, Colorado. Born in Piotrków, Poland, she lost her mother to the Treblinka death camp and survived multiple concentration camps before being liberated by British troops at age seven . In her later years, Sara dedicated herself to Holocaust education, sharing her story with communities and schools, including Aspen Academy in 2024, to ensure the atrocities of the past are never forgotten .

  • Buchenwald Show Keeps Holocaust Memory Alive As Survivors Pass Away

    Eighty years after Buchenwald’s liberation, 20-year-old German drama student Kaethe Lange joined 30 young French and German participants in a Holocaust remembrance performance. Lange emphasized the urgent need to remember history, especially with the far right rising again in Europe. She noted that conversations about the Holocaust are fading, making remembrance more critical than ever.

  • A living testament: 91-year-old Holocaust survivor Riva Hirsch on a mission to preserve history and humanity

    In 1941, seven-year-old Riva Hirsch and her family fled their home in Novaseletz, Romania, after a friend warned them of impending danger, but they were soon captured by the Nazis. Forced into cattle cars and sent to a camp in Moghilev, they endured unimaginable horrors along the way. Riva vividly recalls the traumatic march, where she stepped over dying or dead babies and witnessed the brutality of Nazi dogs attacking people.

  • Penn State students study Holocaust history in Baltics through embedded program

    Over spring break, Penn State students in a Holocaust studies course traveled to Latvia and Lithuania to witness firsthand the impact of the Holocaust on Jewish communities in the Baltics. Led by faculty members, the immersive trip deepened students’ understanding of historical events through on-site learning. Anthropology student Joshua Reiff described the experience as a powerful opportunity to connect classroom discussions with the real-world locations where the atrocities occurred.

  • ‘The victims became the artists.’ New digital exhibition from Northeastern student shows writing was resistance during the Holocaust

    While the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is a well-known example of armed Jewish resistance during the Holocaust, another powerful form of defiance came from the Oyneg Shabes group. This clandestine society in the Warsaw Ghetto used writing and documentation as their weapon, preserving the truth of Nazi atrocities through what became the Ringelblum Archive. Max Berger, a student at Northeastern University, highlighted their story in a digital exhibition titled A Poetic Revolt, emphasizing the importance of cultural and intellectual resistance.

  • Eva Schapira, former child refugee dies at 94

    At just seven years old, Eva Schapira was attacked by Nazi youth while leaving her Jewish school in Bamberg, Germany. Her early memories included being stoned, witnessing the burning of her synagogue, and seeing a doctor beaten, all during the terrifying days of Kristallnacht. These traumatic events shaped her childhood and were later shared through her testimony for the AJR’s Refugee Voices project.

  • Restitution: The Silver That Survived Kristallnacht

    During Kristallnacht in November 1938, Nazis violently attacked Jewish homes, schools, hospitals, and destroyed over 1,400 synagogues and 7,000 businesses across Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland. Shortly after, the Silver Levy of 1939 forced Jews to surrender their silver possessions, stripping them of dignity and wealth under degrading conditions. The Nazis amassed tons of Judaica and silver, most of which was melted down, with the majority of the original owners later murdered in death camps.

  • ‘I want to tell the world’: Bergen-Belsen survivor recounts horrors of Holocaust

    Lola Hassid Angel, a Holocaust survivor from Greece, remained silent for much of her life about the atrocities she witnessed as a child during World War II. By age eight, she had endured unimaginable horrors, leaving her emotionally aged beyond her years. Now 88 and one of the last Greek survivors of Bergen-Belsen—where Anne Frank also perished—Angel feels a powerful duty to speak out. On the 80th anniversary of the camp’s liberation, she reflects on the horrors with a mission: to ensure that future generations, especially world leaders, understand what war truly looks like. “The Germans had a zeal for death,” she says. “They had turned it into a science.”

  • Holocaust survivor speaking via video at Cornell

    Rodi Glass, a Holocaust survivor born in Amsterdam in 1936, will share her story via live video conference on April 23 at Cornell College. She recalls the chilling memory of Nazi soldiers goose-stepping through her neighborhood when she was just four years old. Despite the dangers and persecution her family faced, Glass considers herself lucky to have survived.

  • Passover and the Holocaust

    As Passover approaches, a time when Jews remember their liberation from slavery and the Angel of Death passing over their homes, a poignant musical tribute was performed at the New England Conservatory’s First Mondays concert. Shostakovich’s Trio in E Minor, Op. 67—written in 1944 and dedicated to his late friend Ivan Sollertinsky—resonates deeply with Jewish audiences as a memorial to victims of the Holocaust. Though not Jewish himself, Shostakovich was deeply connected to Jewish intellectuals, many of whom, like Sollertinsky, perished during the war.

  • Get to know the Connecticut man who saved hundreds from the Holocaust

    Varian Fry was an American journalist who helped save over 2,000 Jews and anti-Nazi refugees from Vichy France during World War II, including artists, writers, and intellectuals. Despite his heroic efforts, Fry remained largely unrecognized for decades, even after settling in Connecticut. Now, a local college professor is pushing to establish a dedicated day in his honor to ensure his legacy is remembered.

  • My Grandfather Survived the Holocaust—Wearing His Jacket Helps Me Keep His Legacy Alive

    After Morris’s death, his family discovered a forgotten side of him through decades-old Kodak slides showing a stylish, confident man so different from the one they knew in Kirkland basics. The photos revealed glimpses of his life from the 1950s to the 1980s, including a dashing black blazer and playful plaid trousers. These images brought joy and surprise, offering a deeper, more colorful portrait of their beloved “Papo.”

  • Restitution: The Silver That Survived Kristallnacht

    Kristallnacht in November 1938 marked a violent escalation of Nazi antisemitism, as thousands of Jewish homes, businesses, schools, and over 1,400 synagogues were destroyed. Just months later, the Silberzwangsabgabe, or Silver Levy, forced German Jews to surrender all precious-metal possessions under degrading and coercive conditions. These acts were part of a systematic effort to strip Jews of dignity, property, and safety.

  • Holocaust museums, seeking to center human experience, rethink use of graphic images

    As the world marks 80 years since the liberation of Nazi camps, historians are reassessing how Holocaust museums present graphic imagery. Historian Tal Bruttmann notes that while shocking photos were widely used post-WWII to expose Nazi brutality, their overuse can desensitize viewers and obscure the dignity of victims. He emphasizes that showing mass murder and humiliation should never be treated as normal or routine.

  • World to lose 90% of Holocaust survivors within next 15 years - projections

    A new report warns that 70% of Holocaust survivors will be gone within the next 10 years, and 90% within 15, leaving just around 21,300 survivors worldwide by 2040. The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany highlights this urgent decline as a call to preserve their testimonies before it's too late. Pinchas Gutter, one of the last survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, called the numbers "sobering."

  • 'I remember them every day': Holocaust survivors return to death camps 80 years after liberation

    At 92, Arnold Klebbs is returning for the first time to Birkenau, where he was liberated 80 years ago on May 5 by the American Army. He’ll join 40 Holocaust survivors from Israel in this year’s March of the Living, retracing the route of the death marches alongside their families. The march marks eight decades since the liberation of Europe from the Nazis and the end of WWII.

  • Holocaust survivor shares books his parents handmade while hiding from Nazis

    As the world observes Yom HaShoah, NBC News’ Jesse Kirsch reveals never-before-seen children’s books handmade by a Jewish couple hiding from the Nazis during WWII. These deeply personal artifacts have been donated to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Center. They serve as powerful reminders of resilience, creativity, and hope amid terror.

  • 70% of Jewish Holocaust survivors will be gone in the next 10 years, a report shows

    Eighty years after the Holocaust, more than 200,000 survivors remain, but 70% will be gone within the next decade, highlighting the urgency to preserve their stories. The median age of survivors is 87, with over 1,400 aged 100 or older, according to a new report by the Claims Conference. “This is our last chance to meet survivors and hear their testimonies firsthand,” said executive vice president Greg Schneider.

  • 'I promised my Holocaust survivor father: No oppressor will erase us'

    Dov Eichenwald, a child of Holocaust survivors, reflects on the lasting imprint of his father's suffering and the resilience that sustained their family. The Holocaust remains an ever-present force in his daily life, shaping his identity and need to preserve memory. Even decades later, the sound of German triggers deep unease, echoing the trauma of his father's expulsion from their home in Poland.

  • Netflix tells tale of 7 siblings who miraculously survived the Holocaust to restart life in US

    The SS Marine Flasher brought the first Holocaust survivors to the U.S. after WWII, including the seven Weber siblings who arrived in May 1946. Remarkably, they were the only known group of seven Jewish siblings to survive the war together and emigrate. Their story is told in the documentary Unbroken, directed by Bela’s daughter, now streaming on Netflix.

  • Holocaust survivor Eve Kugler passes away ahead of March of the Living

    Holocaust survivor Eve Kugler, born in 1931 in Halle, Germany, passed away Wednesday night in London at age 93. A renowned speaker and OBE recipient, she shared her family's harrowing story of survival with thousands worldwide and was set to participate once more in the March of the Living. Her death underscores the urgency of preserving the voices of the few remaining survivors.