Kristallnacht story recounted by an eyewitness

Hebrew Academy of The Five Towns and Rockaway (HAFTR) High School students recently had the privilege of hearing the story of Belle Silverstein, a Far Rockaway resident, who as a child, was saved from the widespread violence in Germany by the Kindertransport. Silverstein spoke about her childhood and recounted the story about the evening in November of 1938 that changed her life forever.
Raised in Frankfurt, Germany, Silverstein had a typical life until the pogroms that became known as Kristallnacht occurred. Kristallnacht or “The Night of Broken Glass” is considered by many to be the beginning of the Holocaust. On Nov. 9, 1938, in Germany and Austria, thousands of synagogues and Jewish businesses were destroyed, holy books were desecrated, and hundreds of Jews were killed by Nazi paramilitary groups.
Silverstein did not understand the severity of the situation at that time. She remembers walking to school the day following Kristallnacht. Her teacher explained that their school was closed indefinitely. On her way back home, Silverstein discovered that her father’s store had been was destroyed. She said that her father, out of fear, admitted himself into the hospital to avoid being arrested. She recalled climbing over the hospital’s courtyard wall to see him because the front doors were guarded by Nazi soldiers.
She said she escaped the violence through the Kindertransport, a rescue initiative conducted by England that assisted about 10,000 Jewish children who faced grave danger in their native countries due to the rising anti-Semitic atmosphere.
Miraculously Silverstein was reunited with both of her parents in Scotland seven years after the war and her brother a few years after that in the United States. When asked why she decided to speak publicly about her story after so many years, she said that the next generation needs to know the hardships and struggles that people had to endure during the Holocaust and the years following it.