Jewish Community Remembers “The Night of Broken Glass”

CBS Miami

Nov 18, 2013

MIAMI BEACH (CBSMiami) – The South Florida community observed the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, considered the night the Holocaust began.

On November 9, 1938, also known as “The Night of Broken Glass,” Nazis damaged and destroyed thousands of Jewish businesses, homes and synagogues in Germany and Austria leaving streets covered in glass. It was also the first time, tens of thousands of Jews were sent to concentration camps.

“I remember the trauma. I remember the noise. I remember the crying and the carrying on, and I certainly remember my father being frightened by the Gestapo that attacked him. I remember that vividly,” said Wendy Rothfield who was a toddler living in Austria in 1938. She and her parents moved from country to country to escape the Nazis. “Only my mother my father and I, the rest of the family unfortunately were murdered by the Nazis. We were lucky we were able to escape,” she said.