Hermann Pollnow’s parents saved him from the Nazi Germany they wouldn’t survive. His story, told by his Australian granddaughter, reminds us the Holocaust is a global history, not just a European one.
Wolf Gruner, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Holocaust scholars long relied on documents and survivor testimonies to help reconstruct the history of that tragic event. Now, they’re turning to wordless witnesses to learn more: pictures.
About 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and deported to concentration camps in the German Reich in the immediate aftermath after Kristallnacht, the night of the Broken Glass, in November 1938.
Wolf Gruner, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Most histories highlight the shattered storefronts and synagogues set aflame. But it was the systematic ransacking of Jewish homes that extracted the greatest toll.
Shapell-Guerin Chair in Jewish Studies and Professor of History; Founding Director, USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences