Nov 9 1938, the Kristallnacht pogrom, when Nazi storm troopers across Germany unleashed a coordinated assault on the Jewish community. 179 synagogues burned; 7500 Jewish-owned shops destroyed; 20k Jews taken into “protective custody.” Protests in Germany and abroad were muted.
Conversation
This atrocity did not occur in 1933, when the Nazis came to power. And, shocking as it was, it was far, far from the worst to come. Yet it followed gradually from small, cumulative acts of cruelty, corruption of the law, the corrosion of decency and the capacity for outrage.
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Thus, the imperative of calling out and resisting policies and rhetoric that degrade and demonize others, of standing in solidarity with communities under assault, of refusing the allure of thinking “it could be worse.” There does come a time when it is too late.
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