Return to "The Final Solution" | Facts Kristallnacht
Perspective"Among the emigrants was Zindel Grynszpan, who had
been born in western Poland when it was part of the Imperial
Reich and had moved to Hanover, where he established a small
store, in 1911. On the night of October 27 Grynszpan and his
family were rousted out of their home. Grynszpan's store and the
family's possessions were confiscated. Penniless, famished,
soaked to the skin and freezing, they were herded over the
Polish border. Zindel Grinszpan's seventeen-year-old son,
Herschel, was living with an uncle in Paris. When he received a
letter from his father containing an account of the expulsion,
he decided to strike back in order to demonstrate that `Jews are
not animals.' Resolving to assassinate the German ambassador, he
went to the embassy on November 7. When he was unable to get
near his target, he settled on a more accessible diplomat, Third
Secretary Ernst vom Rath. Rath, who, as it happened, was an
anti-Nazi, was critically wounded. Grynsz