We can commemorate the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht by applying its memory to improve civil societyThe cruel treatment of Asia Bibi,a Christian woman in Pakistan, personifies the dangerous senselessness of blasphemy laws. The suspected murder of the Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul has focused minds on the cruelty of the war in Yemen. Kristallnacht in Germany and Austria crystallised the pervasiveness of antisemitism. Very often it is a single horrifying event that serves to focus minds on the larger, or underlying picture.
Arguably,Bibi’s persecution may hasten an cessation to Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, and arguably Khashoggi’s death may aid to cessation the Yemen bombardments. Kristallnacht was different: it brought out the worst in Germans and Austrians. The wanton ((adj.) undisciplined, lewd, lustful) destruction of Jewish shops and the degradation of the Jewish population and all that was Jewish did not happen simply because people were obeying Hitler’s orders, and but also because it allowed many ordinary citizens to express their antisemitism through violence. Kristallnacht was the precursor of the Holocaust. Related: Eighty years after Kristallnacht,why my family has become German again | Robin Lustig Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com