22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
compelling eyewitness accounts, July 1, 2006
This review is from: Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction (Making History) (Hardcover)
The personal narratives that Gilbert found for this book are its most compelling aspect. The overall picture of Kristallnacht has been known for decades. And Gilbert's accounting of that, while written with his usual skill, basically covers well trodden ground.
But what he did was compile eyewitness accounts, from Jews who where there in Germany on that night. Most of these have not been published before. They give flesh to the historical framework. And as a prelude of far worse that was to come.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The horror as signal of the greater Horror to come, June 29, 2006
This review is from: Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction (Making History) (Hardcover)
Martin Gilbert is one of the most distinguished living historians, both for his vast Churchill biography and for the many works he has written on various aspects of Jewish history. This is his seventy- seventh book. In it he employs his usual method of gathering eye- witness factual accounts, and using them to tell history in an incredibly personal way. He reportedly advertised in the 'Jerusalem Post' and received forty- five detailed descriptions of those who had gone through this event.
The event itself, the night of violence and terror in which over fifteen- hundred synagogues throughout Germany were attacked, thousands of Jewish stores vandalized, in which there were beatings and murders of individual Jews. The violence was accompanied by a jeering triumphal Nazi- sympathizing portion of the German population. The image of young mothers holding up their babies so as to allow them to see the cruelties being done, is a truly chilling one.
Gilbert sees the event as a turnaround one, a key to all that would follow, the prelude to the 'Shoah'. If anyone needed writing on the wall, this was it.
Gilbert traces the reactions throughout the world, including the sympathy displayed to the Jewish situation in a wide variety of places.
This is a detailed, moving , frightening account of an evil moment in modern history. The personal testimonies once again provide an element not simply of authentication, but of deeping of perception and feeling of the event.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Peek into the Heart of Darkness, July 7, 2007
This review is from: Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction (Making History) (Hardcover)
Prior to Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939, two events occurred that unequivocally disclosed to the world the evil mindset of the Nazi regime.
The first of these events was the "Knight of the Long Knives", 30 June 1934, in which the Nazis murdered scores of actual or potential threats to their regime and shortly thereafter Hitler and other Nazis brazenly admitted that they had killed over 75 people outright, without a trial or any other semblance of due process, as enemies of the state.
The second such event was "Kristallnacht" (aka the "Night of Broken Glass"), 10 November 1938, when Nazi thugs began a nationwide rampage against Jews, orchestrated in response to a Jewish man's assassination in France of a low-level German diplomat as retaliation for the deportation of his family (along with 12,000 other Polish-born Jews) from Germany to Poland (which then hesitated to accept them). The result of this rampage was the destruction of over a thousand Jewish synagogues; A far greater number of Jewish businesses and homes had windows and property senselessly smashed and broken. In addition, thousands of Jewish men were corraled and herded off to concentration camps, most never to return to their homes or see their loved ones again. Almost a hundred Jews were killed and many more committed suicide during Kristallnacht.
Martin Gilbert's fine book "Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction" describes the events surrounding this signal event, including what led to the shooting of the German diplomat, what transpired during the Night of Broken Glass, and the aftermath of that officially sanctioned lawlessness.
In telling the story of what happened during the Night of Broken Glass, the author (himself a refugee from Germany as a result of that event) utilizes numerous recently obtained eyewitness accounts of how people were mistreated and property vandalized in this event. Interspersed within these stories are also acts of courage by people who helped to prevent additional harm and damage despite the very real threat that in so doing they would subject themselves to beatings by the Gestapo or being sent to prison or a concentration camp.
Most treatments of Kristallnacht in general history books superficially treat the event by highlighting the destruction of Jewish businesses and showing a stock photo or two of some broken windows and glass on the street. This book demonstrates that this event was about much more than hooligans smashing store windows: It was about the desecration of houses of worship (many of which had stood unharmed for hundreds of years) and the personal invasion of people's homes to humiliate them and wantonly destroy (and in some cases steal) their property.
The author similarly uses eyewitness accounts to help tell the story of the aftermath of Kristallnacht when the Jews in Germany and Austria (by then already annexed to Germany under the "Anschluss" of March 1938) desperately tried to emigrate and escape further degradation and suffering. In the meantime, however, the Nazis continued to pass oppressive laws against the Jews, taking away more and more personal and property rights one by one.
It would seem that worldwide publicity about Kristallnacht would engender worldwide sympathy for the plight of the Jews in Germany. But such was not the case. Only Britain and the U.S. took in any significant number of Jewish refugees (and even these countries imposed limits) while many other nations (e.g., Mexico and Ireland) shamefully refused to take in any at all under any circumstances. (The total number of Jews living in Germany and Austria at the time of Kristallnacht was but several hundred thousand.)
Nonetheless, there were a few brave souls working for countries outside of Germany and Austria who tried to do what they could to help the Jews emigrate (even though reprimanded or punished by their superiors) and several of their stories are told here, as well as accounts of those politicians in the U.S. and Britain who opposed aid to the Jewish people.
The author wisely includes several maps that pinpoint each city in Germany were synagogues were destroyed. These maps show more than any single description could how widespread the destruction was and that it occurred throughout every corner of Germany, from one end to the other.
A minor drawback to the book is that it should have included a more complete explanation of the Nazi planning and implementation of Kristallnacht as well as the Nazis' decisions affecting the Jews immediately thereafter as this would have made the book more cohesive. Still, this book is an excellent portrayal of Kristallnacht and is essential reading for students of history in general, as well as students of the histories of Europe, Germany, or the Holocaust.
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