Witnessing Hate from Afar: How Americans Learned of "Kristallnacht" and the Lessons for Americans Today

To mark the 81st anniversary of “Kristallnacht,” HMTC’s Museum and Programming Director, Dr. Thorin Tritter, will give a talk about the information Americans learned about the pogroms of November 9 and 10, 1938 in Germany, and how quickly news of those events crossed the Atlantic. Drawing on newspaper of the time and autobiographical accounts, Dr. Tritter will explore the event as Americans saw it. He will also compare the news stories from 1938 with news stories that have covered contemporary hate speech and atrocities, asking the audience to think about what are the lessons that we should draw from the past when facing genocides and atrocities in distant places today.