Kristallnacht in Leipzig

In Leipzig, as in other German cities, Jews and Jewish institutions suffered from attacks during the events called Kristallnacht, from November 9–10, 1938.

[1] The violence and destruction was carried out by members of the Sturmabteilung (SA), Schutzstaffel (SS), Gestapo, as well as German civilians.

[1][2] German and Nazi officials, along with standard civilians, watched as Jewish property in Leipzig turned to ash.

A five-page excerpt from his report was published in the Nuremberg Trial documents and was subsequently quoted at length in several English-language source collections on German history.

[3] By 3:51 am that day, SA members dressed in regular clothes, had put the Gemeinde synagogue in the town of Gottschedstraße in flames.

[7] The Nazi officials ordered the fire department and police to only aim to protect gentile property.

[2] These groups collaborated with the SA and SS, but mobs of gentiles in Leipzig also dragged Jewish men out of their homes and brought them to the police.

[2] Rioters would split into small groups and march through the neighborhoods, banging on the doors of Jewish homes shouting "Juden heraus!"

Three Aryan professors of the University of Jena were arrested and brought to concentration camps because they voiced disapproval of the occurring events.

[11] German Jews between the ages of sixteen and sixty, as well as Jewish men without citizenship, were taken to concentration camps in Germany.

[13] Others arrested in Leipzig during Kristallnacht would be told to go to a curved tunnel in the prison and line up, and then ordered by SS men to perform military exercises; all while being beaten, verbally abused, and having razors thrown behind them.

[13] In the Zoo district of Leipzig, people were driven into the walled riverbed of the Parthe and held there for hours.

Another group of prisoners were forced to walk to a concentration camp on a path for fourteen hours without food.

[13] The SS set up an outhouse at the concentration camps, but it was simply a pit with a couple of bars placed over it.

[13] Throughout Kristallnacht in Leipzig, women and children were not targeted for arrest like military-aged Jewish men, but they were affected.

SS guards and Nazi storm troopers raided Jewish homes and brutalized the women and children present.

Men continued to be arrested, and in order to avoid being targeted, families split and lived separately with gentile friends and neighbors.