The 16th Cheshvan 1938 was the night of Kristallnacht, ‘Night of the Broken Glass’, when Nazis destroyed almost all of the 1,600 synagogues in Germany, as well as thousands of Jewish businesses and homes. Similar violence was carried out in Austria. Kristallnacht ushered in a new phase of anti-Semitic decrees, and was for many the first major warning sign of what would become the Holocaust.
