Holocaust Survivor Remembers Kristallnacht
November 8, 2002
Of all the horrors he witnessed and physical pain he suffered during the Holocaust, Alex Lebenstein remembers most vividly Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, when Nazis destroyed his parents' home and business.
On Nov. 9-10, 1938, gangs of Nazi youth broke windows of Jewish businesses and homes in Germany and burned 101 synagogues. Many Jews were beaten, and 91 died during the pogrom. Some 26,000 were arrested and sent to concentration camps.
"I was only 11 years old," Lebenstein, who now lives in Richmond, told an audience of several combined German classes at the University of Richmond yesterday. "Nov. 9-10, 1938, were the two worst days of our life. Today I'm 75 years old, and I'm still affected by it. It's difficult for me to talk about it."
Lebenstein, whose 11th birthday was just six days before Kristallnacht, told the students it was appropriate he addressed them only a few days before the 64th anniversary.
Lebenstein, his mother and father, a World War I hero, had to watch as a Nazi mob, screaming anti-Semitic slogans, ran through their house, wielding picks and shovels and throwing stones and debris. "My mother was screaming, ‘They're killing us, they're killing us.'"
"'You cannot do this,' my father said to the SS guy," Lebenstein said. "'I fought in the war. I defended Germany. I am an honorable citizen.' The SS man ripped the medals off my father's chest and stomped down on them. He spat on my father's face. I was crying and holding onto my father's hand for dear life. How painful it was at 11 to see such horrors."
Lebenstein lost both his parents to the Holocaust and was the only Jewish citizen of his hometown of Haltern, Germany, to survive the death camps.
"Can it happen again over here?" he asked his audience. "You bet it can. I depend on you, the young people, to help other young children from suffering from oppression."
In 1995, Lebenstein made an amazing journey back to Haltern, whose officials had urged him for years to return. He previously refused all requests.
"How could you ever go back to Germany?" he asked. "What for? To be reminded?"
Lebenstein had even ceased writing and speaking in German, and he eventually willed himself to stop dreaming in German.
One day, however, he received a letter from two high school students in Haltern. They were planning an exhibit of what it was like for the Jewish population of their town before, during and after Hitler.
"My family bluntly told me, 'You must go.' So I did."
What he discovered over the course of several trips amazed him. "Germany is a nation stained by blood. They're crying. They're looking for help. They want to be forgiven for their forefathers' sins. The kids wanted to do something to change the times."
"I realized way after my first trip back that I have a responsibility to teach people to be tolerant. My hate started to dissipate."
Erwin Kirschenbaum, who as mayor urged Lebenstein to return in 1995, was on hand for the speech. He had come to America to honor Lebenstein on his 75th birthday.