IMPERCEPTIBLE LINES OF BROKEN GLASS

City Comforts Blog has picked up on Bill Osborne's commentary about "the delicate, almost imperceptible line that separates good and evil, life and death, guilt and innocence." Meanwhile, Osborne offers a reminder that Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, November 9, 1938, was almost a year before the start of World War II -- so that no one had any illusions about the abuses going on in Germany -- and yet nothing was done.

Attacks against Jews were not limited to a notoriously anti-Semitic city such as Munich. On that night and the next all across the country:

"96 Jews were killed and hundreds more injured, more than 1,000 synagogues were burned (and possibly as many as 2,000), [see map], almost 7,500 Jewish businesses were destroyed, cemeteries and schools were vandalized, and 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps."

Within days, laws were passed to "Aryanize" the economy, and it wasn't long before:

+ Jews were required to turn over all precious metals to the government.
+ Pensions for Jews dismissed from civil service jobs were arbitrarily reduced.
+ Jewish-owned bonds, stocks, jewelry and art works can be willed only to the German state.
+ Jews were physically segregated within German towns.
+ A ban on the Jewish ownership of carrier pigeons.
+ The suspension of Jewish drivers licenses.
+ The confiscation of Jewish-owned radios.
+ A curfew to keep Jews off the streets between 9:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. in the summer and 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. in the winter.
+ Laws protecting tenants were made non-applicable to Jewish tenants.