Portuguese Holocaust Museum and British Embassy mark anniversary of Kristallnacht
The anniversary of Kristallnacht was commemorated on Thursday by the Holocaust Museum in Oporto, Portugal, in the presence of around 2,500 teenagers from schools in the North, Centre, and South of the country. The event was sponsored by the British Embassy in Portugal, which covered the costs of bringing the teenagers to the event.
The museum director Michael Rothwell and the British Ambassador to Portugal, Lisa Bandari, presided over the ceremony.
Rothwell spoke to the crowd about his grandparents’ experience of having their shop windows smashed during the pogrom which marked the beginning of the Holocaust. “For my grandparents, the vandalism of their shop and throughout Berlin was the turning point at which they realized the family had to leave Germany. Their children escaped to England thanks to the Kindertransport, but they themselves ended up being taken by train to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the German Nazi extermination camps, where they were both murdered in 1943,” said the museum director.
In turn, Ambassador Lisa Bandari stated, “It is a great honor to be here today, and to see so many people in the Museum, and to witness the inspiring work Michael and his colleagues are doing. The UK is proud to hold the presidency of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance this year, bringing together governments, experts and civil society to promote Holocaust education, research and remembrance.”
“This museum teaches us about the dark places humanity can go when instead of pursuing tolerance, we allow disinformation and the dehumanization of minorities. This is a central theme: how we can all work together to learn more and tackle disinformation and hatred, especially when it is aimed at minorities for whom we must all speak up, even at difficult times.”, said Ambassador Bandari.
In addition to giving the talk, the British Ambassador had a tour round the museum with the teenagers present.
Also present at the event were the Israeli ambassador to Portugal, Oren Rozenblat, who also spoke, and the Vice-President of the Porto Municipality, Filipe Araújo. Both interacted with the teenagers throughout the morning.
“Kristallnacht, that dark night between November 9 and 10 , 1938, is a painful reminder of the fragility of justice and the strength of boundless hatred. This violent antisemitic massacre, engulfed by the silence and disregard of the “common man”, was one of the key events preceding and foreshadowing the Holocaust,” Ambassador Rozenblat said. “There is a key difference between today and then. Then, the Jewish people were unprotected and vulnerable whereas now we have a strong, independent state with the right as well as the ability to defend itself. This gathering to remember Kristallnacht is a shared commitment to a tragedy that taught us all that it´s our duty to ensure that such atrocities never happen again.”
Filipe Araújo, in turn, highlighted that ““Remembering the Holocaust together with school children is of special importance, because it is through education that we can convey crucial lessons to build a better world. May each generation cultivate these teachings to strengthen the foundations of a fairer and more supportive society.”
The ceremony featured the lighting of a memorial flame in front of students from schools across Portugal.
Kristallnacht (the night of crystal) was a massive series of pogroms that took place on the night of November 9, 1938. The name Kristallnacht (literally ‘Crystal Night’) comes from the shards of broken glass that littered the streets after the windows of Jewish-owned stores, buildings and synagogues were smashed.
Carried out by the Nazi Party’s paramilitary forces, the government looked on without intervening, and firefighters watched as Jewish homes and businesses burned. Rioters destroyed 267 synagogues throughout Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland. Over 7,000 Jewish businesses were damaged or destroyed, 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps, and at least 90 Jews were murdered.
The only museum dedicated to the Holocaust on the Iberian Peninsula, the Holocaust Museum of Porto is run by members of the local community whose family members were murdered during the Holocaust and hosts daily school trips, visited by approximately 50,000 school children and students each year. Opened in 2020, the museum has already received around 20% of the Portuguese teenage population.
The anniversary of Kristallnacht is especially poignant after the Hamas attack on Israel. The connection between Kristallnacht and Hamas massacring Israelis is implicit in the history of Palestinian nationalism. Haj al Amin Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem before World War II and the founder of Palestinian nationalism, allied with the Nazis to bring the Holocaust to the Middle East, and many Palestinians volunteered to fight in the German army. Al-Husseini visited Hitler in Germany during the war and may have visited Auschwitz at the height of its operation, requesting that Hitler complete the genocide of the Jews to prevent them from moving to Israel. He also advocated for the Germans to establish death camps in Palestine.It is also well-documented that Husseini requested and received from Hitler a promise not to permit Jews fleeing Europe to arrive in Palestine, a plan that was being initiated by the English and American governments. This undoubtedly led to many Jews being unable to flee and dying in Nazi death camps.
Research has shown that the Holocaust almost spread to the Holy Land. In 2006, historians at the University of Stuttgart concluded from their studies of Nazi archives that a unit of SS troops stationed in Athens was tasked with following invading frontline troops in Palestine and then rounding up and murdering about 500,000 European Jews who had taken refuge there as a Middle Eastern aspect of the Final Solution.
This legacy of Jew-hatred was handed down, finding its way into the origins of the Palestinian Authority. Al-Husseini met a young Yasser Arafat, the head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the first president of the Palestinian Authority in Egypt in 1946. It was at that point that Arafat became his protege, taking over the cause and eventually the leadership of Palestinian nationalism.
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