Persecution of Jews
Introduction
The »Anschluss Pogrom«
The »Aryanizations«
The Expulsion
# November Pogrom
Until the Onset of the Deportations
Robbery of the Last Belongings
Jewish Community
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On November 7, 1938, 17-year-old Herschel Grynszpan shot the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath in Paris. With this action he wanted to protest against the persecution of the German Jews. Two days later Rath succumbed to his injuries. Thereupon, the Reich minister for propaganda Joseph Goebbels initiated a pogrom (»The Night of Broken Glass«) throughout the Reich on the night from November 9 to 10, 1938.

In Vienna, in the course of the pogrom, which here lasted for several days, 42 synagogues and prayer houses were set on fire and devastated. Thousands of Jewish businesses and apartments, if they had not been Aryanized already in the previous months, were looted, destroyed, and confiscated. 6547 Viennese Jews were arrested, nearly 4000 of them were taken to the Dachau concentration camp.

The assassination and the pogrom ordered by state- and party leaders provided the NS-rulers with a welcome opportunity to carry out and legitimize the total exclusion of the Jews from the German economy. On November 12, 1938, the Ordinance on the Elimination of Jews from the German Economy was issued: from now on Jews were prohibited from operating an independent commercial business or trade. In the same session an »Atonement Tax« of one billion RM for the Paris assassination was imposed on Germany's Jewish population as well as the obligation to compensate for all damages caused during the pogrom.

In sum, the November pogrom with its massive deportations to concentration camps and acts of violence meant a further dramatic escalation of the anti-Jewish policy of the NS-regime.


 
more information according to this article: The NS-Movement as an Instrument of Terror

Download:  Bericht des Führers des SD-Unterabschnittes Oberdonau, SS-Sturmbannführer Herbert Sperling, betreffend die Ereignisse am 9. und 10. November 1938 in Linz und anderen Städten Oberösterreichs.
Download:  Anweisung des Reichskommissars Joseph Bürckel bzw. des Gauleiters von Wien, Odilo Globocnik, betreffend Handhabung und Weiterverwendung von beschlagnahmtem jüdischen Eigentum, 17. November 1938.

 
Burning synagogue in Klosterneuburg.
» click see larger image


10 November 1938: burning synagogue in Klosterneuburg.

Destroyed synagogue of the Sephardic congregation in Vienna Burning synagogue in Vienna’s second district
Synagogue in Vienna’s first district, Seitenstettengasse Destroyed synagogue in Vienna’s second district, Tempelgasse
»Völkischer Beobachter«

November Pogrom (»The Night of Broken Glass«)