Honour for Kristallnacht witness
LIVING in Vienna in 1938 under Nazi rule, Shmuel Rosenkranz was witness to the destruction and terror that occurred on Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken glass, which marked an intensification in the Nazi persecution of German and Austrian Jews culminating in the Holocaust.
LIVING in Vienna in 1938 under Nazi rule, Shmuel Rosenkranz was witness to the destruction and terror that occurred on Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken glass, which marked an intensification in the Nazi persecution of German and Austrian Jews culminating in the Holocaust.
Rosenkranz will be honoured at a ceremony at Glen Eira Town Hall to commemorate the 73rd anniversary of Kristallnacht on November 9.
On the night of November 9-10, 1938, 91 Jews were murdered, 7500 Jewish businesses were destroyed, 267 synagogues burnt, and hundreds of people injured. About 30,000 Jewish men were rounded up, earmarked for torture, slave labour, brutal treatment and often death at the hands of the SS.
The former president of the Jewish Holocaust Centre, Rosenkranz and his late wife, Betty, will be honoured at the commemoration, which will be featured in a program produced and directed by Esther Gross under the joint auspices of B’nai B’rith Victoria, the Jewish Holocaust Centre and the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia, Victoria.
The program also involves a presentation scripted by B’nai B’rith’s Cedric Gould and will be presented by performers John Lawrence, Ruth Yaffe, George Werther and Rabbi Philip Heilbrunn.
On November 11, Kristallnacht witness George Ginzburg will relate his memories during a Shabbat service at Temple Beth Israel. The Jewish Holocaust Centre guide was a child at the time.
He and others in the Betar youth group in Berlin, ran into burning synagogues, dodging bystanders brandishing iron bars, to try to save Torah scrolls that were hidden at Betar headquarters. Ginzburg, who was to survive Auschwitz, later wrote of his ordeals in his autobiography A Will to Live.
Meanwhile, chairman of the NSW Community Relations Commission Stepan Kerkyasharian will be the keynote speaker at a Kristallnacht commemoration in Sydney on Wednesday.
Kerkyasharian and Holocaust survivor Richard Wolf will address the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies’ 73rd anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Night of the Broken Glass.
Organiser Sarita Gold said it was important to remember our history.
“The Kristallnacht is considered to be the onset of the Holocaust because close to 30,000 men were incarcerated and taken to concentration camps, nearly 2000 Synagogues were burned, businesses were attacked and shop windows were smashed,” Gold said.
Students from Moriah College, Masada College, Kesser Torah College, Emanuel School and Mount Sinai College will attend the event.
“It’s very important for younger people to remember because this is part of our Jewish history and it is something everyone should know.”
The NSW Council of Christians and Jews (CCJ) will also commemorate Kristallnacht.
Rabbi Paul Jacobson, of Emanuel Synagogue, and Rabbi Jeremy Lawrence, of the Great Synagogue, will join priests and students for the commemoration at noon today (November 4) in Martin Place.
CCJ immediate past president and event organiser William Szekely said: “It’s such an important event and we have to learn from it to ensure that it will never happen again.”
LIVIA ALBECK-RIPKA AND AJN STAFF
Shmuel Rosenkranz
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