The Day the Holocaust Began The Odyssey of Herschel Grynszpan

Subjects:

• History » European History -- Modern/20th Century
• History » Holocaust Studies
• History » World War II

Reviews:

• The day the Holocaust began was November 7, 1938, when Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old Polish-German Jew, shot and killed Eduard vom Rath, an officer in the German embassy in Paris. Grynszpan proclaimed that he wanted `to avenge the great wrong which had been visited on his fellow Jews in general and on his family in particular.' What followed was the Kristallnacht, in which 265 synagogues were destroyed, 7,500 Jewish businesses looted, and 30,000 Jews sent to concentration camps--the first step in the Holocaust. Schwab's father was one of those sent to the camps. Schwab became interested in the Grynszpan case and eventually met an embassy clerk who had been a key witness at Grynszpan's trial, as well as Grynszpan's defense lawyer. Schwab describes Grynszpan's experiences while in French and German custody and gives a detailed background of the assassin-hero. The author asserts that in the final analysis, Grynszpan performed a valuable service for European Jews--for although his dee
  —Booklist
• This history, a footnote to that of the Holocaust, tells the story of the trial and eventual liquidation of Grynzspan as completely as it ever will be known.
  —Washington Post Book World

• Endorsement From Simon Wiesenthal: The Day the Holocaust Began gives a detailed picture of the planning and preparations the Nazis undertook in order to stage a show trial--with Herschel Grynszpan as the representative of World Jewry...The extensive chronology in this book is impressive and should prove quite useful for historians...it fills a void in historiography, and I am sure it will be read by a vast and appreciative audience.
• Endorsement From Sybil Milton, Resident Historian
  U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum: Gerald Schwab's The Day the Holocaust Began is fascinating reading. It is an extremely valuable account of the story of Herschel Grynszpan, the expulsion of Polish Jews from Germany, the November 1938 pogrom (Crystal Night), and of Grynszpan's subsequent fate as a prisoner of the Nazis. This vivid and dramatic story is both biographical and historical and fills a critical gap in our understanding of the Holocaust.
• Endorsement From Senator Rudy Boschwitz: Gerald Schwab has written a compelling story about the aftermath of one of the most important events to take place on the path to the Holocaust. Using primarily official German documents, Schwab has written a fascinating, exhaustively researched book which is sure to become a standard work on this subject. He is to be congratulated for producing a work which maintains the reader's interest throughout while maintaining the highest levels of scholarship.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• November 7, 1938
• The Death of vom Rath
• The Victim
• The Aftermath--Kristallnacht
  (The Night of Broken Glass)
• World Reaction
• Growing Up Jewish in Hitler's Germany
• Grynszpan's Emigration-- Life in Paris
• The Deportation of the Grynszpan Family
• From Despair to Vengeance
• The Prosecution
• The Defense Team
• The Trial of Abraham and Chawa Grynszpan
• A Complex Character
• Moves and Countermoves
• Evacuation from Paris--Extradition to Germany
• A German Trial for Herschel Grynszpan--A Proposal
• A House Divided--Nazi Trial Preparations
• The Trial
• The Problem of Paragraph 175
• The End?
• Summing Up
• Epilogue
• Dramatis Personae
• Bibliography
• Index