Eighty-three years ago, beginning on November 9, 1938, The Night of Broken Glass, more than 7,000 Jewish-owned stores and synagogues were ransacked—their glass shattered all over the streets of Germany and Austria, scores of Jews were murdered, and over 30,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps.
During the most challenging of times, when evil and hatred seem to reign supreme, there have always been those whose light shines through the darkness, through their inspiring acts of courage and bravery. As we commemorate the events of Kristallnacht 1938, we honor the moral heroism and valor of those who resisted evil during the Holocaust and at other times of great mortal peril and danger to humanity.
“Let There Be Light: Stories of Hope and Humanity to Illuminate the Darkness” is a televised program presented by the International March of the Living with the support of the Miller Center for Community Protection and Resilience at Rutgers University, and in cooperation with the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and the USC Shoah Foundation. The program will be simulcast on the Jewish Broadcasting Service, MOTL.org, YouTube, and Facebook, on Tuesday, November 9 at 8 p.m.
Eighty-three years ago the world first gained an inkling of the savage intentions of Hitler and the Nazis. Kristallnacht turned out to be a grim foreshadowing of what was to happen to the rest of Europe’s Jews. By the end of World War II, an estimated 6 million Jews and millions of other innocent victims all across Europe lost their lives at the hands of the Nazis.
This broadcast seeks to shift our focus from the atrocities of Nazi Germany to the moral courage of those who resisted the Nazis and other forms of tyranny. This program, the creation of Dr. David Machlis, vice chair of the International March of The Living, professor at Adelphi University, and a Bergen County resident, is part of a larger campaign that has been launched by the March of the Living called “Let There Be Light,” where individuals, institutions and houses of worship around the world are invited to keep their lights on during the night of November 9 as a symbol of solidarity and mutual commitment in the shared battle against antisemitism, racism, hatred and intolerance.
The program will include presentations from Irwin Cotler, Canada’s special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and fighting antisemitism, a world-class human rights activist and advocate for Nelson Mandela and Natan Sharansky; John Farmer, director of the Miller Center for Community Protection and Resilience at Rutgers University and former New Jersey attorney general and chair of the 911 Commission; Carl Wilkens, an American Christian missionary and the former head of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency International in Rwanda; Malcolm Hoenlein, former executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, who has done much work behind the Abraham Accords; Tali Nates, founder and director of the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre; testimonies from Kristallnacht survivors; Jewish astronaut Jessica Meier; Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg; and musical guest, the Armenian activist Ani Djirdjirian.
The program MC is Richard Heideman, a distinguished attorney and human rights activist. There will be a special presentation to Paul Miller, founder of the Miller Center for Community Protection and Resilience at Rutgers University, by former refusenik, MK and chair of the Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy, Natan Sharansky. March of The Living President Phyllis Greenberg Heideman, former board member of the U.S. Holocaust Museum and prominent activist, will conclude the program.
“The Holocaust is not just a Jewish issue,” said Machlis. “It is a universal issue. We must learn from the past so that a more tolerant and just society will evolve for the betterment of all humankind.” “Remembrance is the key to prevention,” said Farmer.
Justice Robert H. Jackson, chief prosecutor for the United States at the Nuremberg Trials, said in his opening statement on November 21, 1945: “The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated.”
Those who lived through the Holocaust, as well their families and those old enough to remember those tragic events, know full well the consequences of intolerance, apathy and ignorance. Those too young to remember must be educated.
Against the current backdrop of rising antisemitism and racism, and the shadow of the coronavirus, these expressions of optimism and unity will help illuminate the world against darkness and hatred.
Dr. Wallace Greene has written and lectured on the Shoah, is a member of Federation’s Holocaust Commemoration Committee, and is an associate producer of this program.
