Susan and Joseph Hilsenrath woke up to the sound of breaking glass and a brick crashing through their bedroom window on the night of November 9, 1938.
Susan hid in fear as her younger brother climbed up to the window to see what was happening outside.
“Susi, it’s our neighbors,” said Joseph, who was only eight years old.
That night, the Nazi government led violent attacks against Jewish people. In their town of Bad Kreuznach, Germany, Susan’s neighbors turned against her family, tearing down a lamppost and ramming it through their front door.
That night became known as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass. It changed their lives forever.
Susan’s family had hoped to escape to America with help from a relative. But by late 1938, it took an average of two years for a German Jew to get a visa.
With no other choice, Susan’s parents, Israel and Annie, paid almost all their money to a smuggler to take her and Joseph to France. They believed France would be safe and never imagined the Nazis would reach it too.
Now, more than 80 years later, Susan can hardly believe what her parents had to do.
“I am a mother and a grandmother, and the idea of sending my children away is unbelievably horrible,” she said. “I can’t imagine doing that.”
Later, Susan’s parents and baby brother, who was too young to escape with them, finally made it to America. But while Susan and Joseph were in France, still in danger from the Nazis, their father, Israel, wrote to many aid organizations, begging for help.
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