Light Up The Church

May 2023: Kristallnacht News Update

Thank you again for signing the Kristallnacht declaration. The first week of every month we send a few stories about Kristallnacht and the Holocaust that made the news in the previous month. Towards November 2023 we will share information about Light Up The Church 2023.

 

  • Schwarzenegger Unveils the Family History that Motivated His Stance Against Antisemitism in Video

    Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke out against rising antisemitism in an exclusive interview with CNN’s Dana Bash. He revealed his family history as an example of why he takes a strong stance against antisemitism. The former California Governor’s father was a member of the Nazi party and participated in Kristallnacht, a night of violence against Jews in Germany in 1938.

  • One in ten history teachers face students who deny the Holocaust

    A survey by the Nederlands Dagblad finds that almost 10 percent of history teachers in secondary schools have to deal with students in their class who deny the Holocaust. Especially in schools with a large percentage of students with an immigrant background, incidents of Holocaust denial occur twice as often, reports Nederlands Dagblad.

  • The Holocaust survivor who hunted down infamous Nazi torturer | Josef Lewkowicz

    At only sixteen years old, Josef Lewkowicz became a number, prisoner 85314. Following the Nazi invasion of Poland, he and his father were separated from their family and herded to the Kraków-Plaszów concentration camp. Forced to carry out hard labour in brutal conditions, and to live under the constant threat of extreme violence and sudden death, before the war was over Josef would witness the unique horrors of six of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Mauthausen and Ebensee.

  • Children of the Holocaust: Stories of Survival - Lisa Grabell

    Lisa Grabell b. 1937 in Vienna, Austria As an infant, she and her parents escaped from Nazi-occupied Vienna by train into Switzerland and became refugees. They were able to emigrate to the United States in 1939.

  • Holocaust survivor aged 100 throws first pitch for Tampa Bay Rays

    Holocaust survivor Helen Kahan celebrated her 100th birthday Friday by throwing the first pitch as local team the Tampa Bay Rays prepared to play the New York Yankees at Tropicana Field in Florida.

  • Holocaust survivors in post-war Germany | DW Documentary

    May 1945, Germany. The Nazis have been defeated; the concentration camps liberated. But tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors remain in the land of the perpetrators. DW tells the story of their struggle to rebuild their lives - and the present-day campaign to keep their memory alive.

  • Anne Frank’s Childhood Friend Recalls Their Years Before the Holocaust

    Generations have learned about the Holocaust from Anne Frank, a teenage girl whose extraordinary diary, first published in 1947, documented her two-year experience hiding from the Nazis. Countless readers, deeply moved by Anne’s courage, have wondered about the life of this brilliant German Jewish girl before her seclusion. Now My Friend Anne Frank, by Hannah Pick-Goslar, sheds new light on those poignant early years.

  • Mass Grave Found at Polish Site Where Hundreds of Jews Were Murdered by the Nazis

    Development work in Lublin unearthed the human remains and evidence suggests that hundreds more bodies could be found. Meir Bulka, who works to preserve Poland’s Jewish heritage, is trying to stop further construction

  • Who was Elie Wiesel?

    Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) was one of the most famous survivors of the Holocaust and a world-renowned author and champion of human rights. His first book, Night, recounts his suffering as a teenager at Auschwitz and has become a classic of Holocaust literature. In 1986, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

  • The Night Of Broken Glass

    The Night of Broken Glass represented both the culmination of rising antisemitism and a new stage of overtly murderous Jew-hatred. Indeed, it was the most rampant display of widespread violence against Jews since the Nazis rose to power. Furthermore, its aftermath saw the attempted extermination of all European Jewry.
    Note: this is a good and succinct summary about Kristallnacht.