Special Holocaust exhibit in Fresno reveals scary similarities to today | Opinion

“Kristallnacht,” a German word known in English as “Night of Crystal,” is better known as the “Night of Broken Glass.” It was an event that was a forerunner to the Jewish Holocaust committed by the Nazis.

On Nov. 9 and 10, 1938, Nazi leaders unleashed a wave of violence against Jews living in Germany in reaction to the assassination of a German diplomat by a Jewish man in Paris. Thirty thousand Jewish males were forced into concentration camps. Their crime? Being Jewish.

Jewish homes, synagogues and businesses were attacked and burned across the nation. The “broken glass” refers to the shattering of windows.

So when a man hurled a rock through a glass entry way at Temple Beth Israel in October, shattering it into broken glass, the deeper meaning was not lost on Rabbi Rick Winer.

“To have broken glass here at our (religious) home was horrific,” he told me in a phone interview this past week. Windows were also broken out at the Noah’s Ark Restaurant and Bakery, even though it is owned by people of Armenian ancestry.

The Fresno vandalism coincided when Hamas terrorists attacked Israeli settlements bordering Gaza. Following the local incident, Fresno police arrested a suspect who is accused of vandalism, hate crimes and making threats, all felonies.

Opinion

Many Americans living today don’t know about Kristallnacht. I had heard of it, but decided to research it further and to learn more about the Holocaust.

Thankfully, I was able to do that by viewing a special exhibit on display at the downtown Fresno County Free Library. “Americans and the Holocaust” is a traveling exhibit of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum that is sponsored by the American Library Association.

Fresno County’s main library is the only public library in California selected to show the exhibit. It consists of four wall-size panels and a main kiosk with photos and text that address two key questions: What did Americans know about the Holocaust, and what more could have been done?

Some touch screens provide additional details. One especially relevant to me shows the front pages of newspapers from every state that report on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust as it was unfolding. Among the three California newspapers picked was the Tulare Advance-Register.

American ignorance

After viewing the exhibit, I was struck by how conditions in our nation today are strikingly similar to the late 1930s and ‘40s.

Many Americans were aware of how Nazi Germany took over European countries in its conquests. However, Americans were woefully ignorant of how Jewish people in Europe were being rounded up and killed simply because of their religion and culture.

Like many today who want to limit immigrants from coming here, Americans during World War II were also against letting European Jews immigrate to the United States.

Following Kristallnacht, a poll was done that asked if America should allow a larger number of Jewish exiles from Germany to move to the United States. Seventy-one percent of Americans said no.

Another poll asked if Americans backed a plan to let 10,000 refugee children come to the nation. Sixty-six percent of Americans said no.

By 1939, 300,000 Jewish Germans were on the waiting list for U.S. visas. This was despite restrictive U.S. policies that made it difficult to get one. The U.S. issued only 180,000 to 220,000 visas to European refugees from 1933 to 1945.

Most Americans viewed the war as a conflict to save democracy. It was not until American troops reached Germany in the later stages of World War II and entered concentration camps that the full impact of the Holocaust became known.

Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust. They died by poison gas, mass shootings, starvation and deprivation, and other violent means.

One of the news reporters who saw for himself was celebrated broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow. He did a broadcast from the Buchenwald concentration camp, a report that more than half of all Americans heard.

““I pray you to believe what I have said about Buchenwald. I reported what I saw and heard, but only part of it. For most of it, I have no words,” Murrow told listeners.

Another person quoted in the exhibit who entered Buchenwald was U.S. Army soldier Stephan Lewy. “We were the first Americans in the Buchenwald concentration camp. Needless to say, you couldn’t distinguish between those people that had passed away from the others, which were still living.”

Trump and immigration

Now for current similarities:

Former President Donald Trump has already announced his immigration policies if he gets elected next year as the Republican nominee.

As reported by CBS News, Trump has vowed to end birthright citizenship for the children of immigrants living in the country unlawfully. He wants to deputize the National Guard to carry out mass deportations. Legal immigrants would have to pass an ideological test to gain entry. In an interview, Trump said some migrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.”

When asked by Gallup earlier this year about immigration, the majority of Americans said they want it decreased.

Winer was on a committee that worked to bring the exhibit to Fresno. “When we began putting this program together, we had no idea how timely it would be,” he said.

“Here in America, we are facing the potential for an incoming administration that styles itself after fascist dictatorships. When the former president admires fascist leaders, we really need to know our history.”

This column is not meant to address the current war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. Rather, it is to encourage Fresno and Clovis residents to see the Holocaust exhibit and be reminded of that dark chapter of world history.

Lessons of the Holocaust have relevance for Americans as they consider Trump’s fitness for another term in the White House. His stated immigration policies, his screening applicants for ideological purity in line with his tenets, his use of words like “vermin” to describe political opponents, and his continued denial of the 2020 election results reveal his desire to be a dictator.

You can go

The “Americans and the Holocaust” exhibit will be on display at the downtown Fresno County Library through December. The display is in the main lobby.

The library is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.