By Laura Hudson
A group of 20 students did not let the cold weather stop them from gathering outside Tuesday to remember Kristallnacht, an event that many consider to be the start of the Holocaust.
On Nov. 9 and Nov. 10 of 1938, organized anti-Jewish riots erupted in Germany and Austria, where the violence included the destruction of 7,500 businesses and homes. Over 1,100 synagogues were burned, as well as the arrest of 30,000 Jewish citizens and the murder of more than 91 Jewish people. The event is remembered as "The Night of Broken Glass." Over six decades later, students assembled in front of the Student Center to hold a candlelight vigil in memory of the tragedy.
Students read memoirs from survivors and various works about the event.
"The object of the mob's hate was a hospital for sick Jewish children, many of them cripples or consumptives," read one student from the personal memoir of Michael Bruce. "In minutes the windows had been smashed and the doors forced. When we arrived, the swine were driving the wee mites out over the broken glass, bare-footed and wearing nothing but their nightshirts. The nurses, doctors and attendants were being kicked and beaten by the mob leaders, most of whom were women."
As students walked by, glancing at the circle, the 20 students stayed huddled, singing and praying together.
"We're here to remember," sophomore Amanda Rosenthal said. "It's great that we're all here to commemorate the lives that were lost and the tragedy that occurred. We don't want to forget."
"The students are here to pay a tribute," Rabbi Meir Mitelman, executive director of Hillel, said. "By gathering around and reading works from that period, we're reminding ourselves that there is not one person who was not affected by the tragedy."
On Wednesday, Hillel sponsored the eyewitness account of Marion Blumenthal Lazan, a survivor of Kristallnacht. At 4 years old, a month before her family was scheduled to depart Germany for the United States, Lazan's family was seized and taken to a concentration camp.
"We were trapped," she said. She and her family stayed in the camps for six and a half years and her father died shortly after their train was liberated on the way to an extermination camp in 1945.
"I am very grateful that I survived in body, mind and spirit. I retell what happened to me like it was a nightmare, I have to separate myself from the events, because it's the only way I can deal with it," Lazan said.
"We're doing this to recognize the events that happened and pay our respect to those who went through this," Lindsay Newman, a fellowship of Hillel, said. "We're here to help students of today plan for our future, so that something like this never happens again."
Lazan held up the yellow star she was pinned with by the Nazis and was forced to wear for six and half years of her life.
"Let us build bridges and reach out to each other, being true to ourselves and our heart," she said. "Remember and share these stories, live by the hope, determination and acceptance. And never, ever forget."
Blumenthal Lazan wrote a book with Lila Perl, "Four Perfect Pebbles, A Holocaust Story."