To remember Kristallnacht properly, we must first
renounce its German-given name.
Seventy years ago, on the nights of November 9 and 10, 1938, rampaging mobs
throughout
Many historians consider that as the real beginning of the Holocaust, the
first step in the planned extermination of the Jewish people leading to the
eventual deaths of six million victims of the Nazi program of genocide.
For that reason it is certainly proper to commemorate this harbinger of
horror, the infamous dates that mark the onset of the spiral of unimaginable
hatred unloosed among a supposedly civilized people.
What is unfathomable to me, though, is the name by which this commemoration
continues to be known.
This November Jewish communities throughout the world will again gather to
recall Kristallnacht -- and will unwittingly allow themselves, in some
measure, to verbally embrace the very heresy that abetted the Holocaust.
Kristallnacht is German for "the night of crystal." And 70
years after the horrible events of 1938 should have given us by now sufficient
perspective to expose the lie of a horrible WMD
How, after all, were the Nazis able to commit their crimes under the veneer
of civilized respectability? Upon analysis, the answer is obvious. They
glorified the principle of murder by euphemism.
SPECIAL TREATMENT
In the language of the Nazi perpetrators: Sonderbehandlung
("special treatment") was the way to describe gassing victims. Euthanasie
was the "polite" way to speak of the mass murder of retarded or
physically handicapped patients. Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Makes you Free)
were the words that greeted new arrivals at the entrance to the death camp of Auschwitz
Euphemisms, as Quentin Crisp so brilliantly put it, are "unpleasant
truths wearing diplomatic cologne." On the simplest level the name Kristallnacht
suggests that the only terrible thing that happened was breakage of a
tremendous amount of glass that would have to be replaced -- a financial loss
caused by wasteful vandalism that the government subsequently dealt with by
taxing the Jewish community to pay for the damages inflicted upon them.
Kristallnacht was the German euphemism for a time of sanctioned
killing. The word takes into account only the loss of kristall, and is
one reason why its continued usage is so appalling.
But there was more to it than that. Dr. Walter H. Pehle, a historian specializing in modern Germany Germany.
light bulbs in your electric candles. The multi-faceted crystal lights provide
a warm, sparkly glow."
Crystal night. It is that very connection that played no small role in Goebbel's choice of
descriptive for a moment that the German Minister of Propaganda wanted to
immortalize as a sparkling and glowing portend of a future rid of its
"Jewish parasites."
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We must proclaim that we commemorate not broken windows
but shattered lives. |
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Why then would we choose to identify the night of initial mass murders with a
word that not only ignores everything other than broken glass, but in fact
glorifies its results as gifts of crystal clear light to the distorted truths
of Nazi ideology?
To remember Kristallnacht properly we must first renounce its
German-given name.
We must proclaim that we commemorate not broken windows but shattered lives.
We must pledge never again to allow evil to enter our lives disguised as the
good and the noble.
We must declare that no euphemisms will ever again be permitted to cloak the
horrors they intend to conceal.