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Remembering Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass)
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Neue Synagoge - Centrum Judaicum in Berlin
Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), was a pogrom that occurred throughout Nazi Germany on November 9 – November 10, 1938. Kristallnacht saw the destruction in a single night of more than a thousand Synagogues, the ransacking of tens of thousands of Jewish businesses and homes, and more than 200,000 Jewish people were rounded up and taken to concentration camps.
The Neue Synagoge - Centrum Judaicum in Berlin was constructed in 1866, almost 200 years after the foundation of the Berlin Jewish community. During the horrific 'Night of Broken Glass', the building was severely damaged by the Nazis but saved from heavy damages when Wilhelm Kruetzfeld , the local precinct police chief came to the building's rescue. Today it serves as an office and museum where visitors can learn about the history and achievements of the Jews in and around Berlin, as well as preserve the memory of the Jews, who were murdered.
The Neue Synagoge - Centrum Judaicum is open for visits Sunday through Friday. After your learning experience, visit the nearby Beth Cafe around the corner for a wonderful Kosher meal.
To attend Jewish services in Berlin, you may wish to visit the Rykestrasse Synagogue, Germany's largest synagogue with 1200 seats. The Rykestrasse Synagogue is also open for tours on designated days from March through October.
The poignant beauty for me of the Neue Synagoge - Centrum Judaicum was that every day I was in Berlin, I looked at my map and could not find the synagogue, but I knew it was very close. Everyday a bright light blinded my site near the train stop, on the last day of my Berlin visit it became clear. The bright light of the synagogue was none other that the dome of the Neue Synagogue, crowned with the Star of David.
For more articles on Jewish history see, Holocaust remembrance stones.
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