Never-before-seen photos of the event considered the beginning of the Holocaust have been released to the public, giving viewers another look at the horrific Kristallnacht.
The images were released by Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, as part of the 84th anniversary of Kristallnacht, which took place on Nov. 9-10 of 1938. The center found the photos in a photograph collection donated to it, according to ABC News.
The photos will “serve as everlasting witnesses long after the survivors are no longer here to bear testimony to their own experiences,” said Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan.
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During the Kristallnacht pogrom, also known as “The Night of Broken Glass,” many Jewish businesses and homes were attacked and destroyed by mobs of Germans and Austrians. The historical event is widely considered to be the start of the Holocaust, with the pogrom leaving a total of 1,400 destroyed synagogues, 92 Jews dead, and 30,000 Jews sent to concentration camps.
Jonathan Matthews, head of Yad Vashem’s photo archive, claimed the newly surfaced photos are the first he was aware of depicting actions taking place indoors, as “most of the images we have of Kristallnacht are images from outside.” When viewed with the outdoor photos, they “give you a much more intimate image of what’s happening.”
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The photos were taken by Nazi photographers, which ended up in the possession of a Jewish American serviceman who served in Germany during World War II, though it is unclear how he managed to get a hold of these pictures. The man’s unidentified descendants then donated the photo album to Yad Vashem as part of its effort to collect Holocaust-era items owned by Holocaust survivors and their families.
