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On the night of November 9-10, 1938, Nazi thugs rampaged through the Jewish neighborhoods throughout Germany and parts of Austria, burning or destroying 267 synagogues, vandalizing and looting approximately 7,500 Jewish businesses, and killing at least 91 Jews. Untold thousands of Jews were beaten, and 30,000 were arrested and sent to concentration camps. This event became known as "Kristallnacht", commonly translated as "Night of Broken Glass", a reference to the thousands of windows of Jewish-owned shops, Jewish homes, and synagogues that were smashed by sledgehammers and stones that night. The pogrom was carried out by the Sturmabteilung (SA), the paramilitary arm of the Nazi Party, and by civilians. Although Kristallnacht was not an official act of the German government, the police and firemen did nothing to interfere while damage and destruction occurred around them. Kristallnacht sparked worldwide condemnation. The Times of London wrote of it as a disgrace to Germany and condemned the "burnings and beatings, [the] blackguardly assaults on defenseless and innocent people," After Kristallnacht, the German government's economic and political persecution of Jews became more open, more widespread, and more vicious. Historians view it as the beginning of Hitler's so-called Final Solution and the Holocaust.
