On
the night of November 9, 1938, Hitler's Nazis burned synagogues
all over Germany and Austria, smashed shop windows, looted
stores, ransacked Jewish homes, and killed dozens of Jews.
Twenty thousand Jews were arrested. The event was called
Kristallnacht (Crystal Night) because of the piles
of broken glass strewn on the sidewalks and streets. Two
days later, the German government imposed an "atonement
fine" of a billion marks on the Jews to pay for the property
damage and, several weeks after that, announced that
Jewish
assets would be confiscated. A few days later, the government
forbade Jews to drive cars or use public transportation,
visit public parks and museums, or attend plays or concerts.
It was a prelude to the horrors of the Nazi concentration
camps to come and is often considered the beginning of
the Holocaust.
ER was appalled. "This German-Jewish business makes me
sick," she wrote to her friend Lorena
Hickok on November 14, 1938, "and when FDR
called tonight I was glad to know that [U.S. ambassador
to Germany Hugh] Wilson was being recalled and we were protesting."(1)
Without directly challenging American immigration policy,
she said at a press conference, that "special and speedy
relief methods" were needed to meet the refugee crisis in
Europe.(2) When she learned
that the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, country club that she
was to address would not allow Jewish members, she cancelled
her speech and criticized its discriminatory policy. She
also intensified her work with nongovernmental organizations
and individuals to find safe havens for refugees. On December
6, 1938, she spoke at a rally organized to raise funds for
the Leon Blum colony being established in Palestine for
1,000 Jewish refugee families. She pressed the State Department
to respond to individual appeals, advocated liberalization
of the immigration laws, and worked with officials to combat
American anti-Semitism.
Notes:
FDR recalled the American ambassador,
Hugh Wilson, in protest, and no American ambassador was
ever sent again to Hitler's Germany. In addition, he extended
the visas of the 12-15,000 German and Austrian citizens
living in the United States. Blanche Wiesen Cook,Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume Two, 1933-38
(New York: Viking, 1999), 557.