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A UL Lafayette history professor will join a witness of the Kristallnacht—the attack on German Jews that signaled the start of the Holocaust—to discuss the historic event tomorrow night in recognition of its 75th anniversary.

The talks, by Dr. Richard Frankel, assistant professor of modern German history, and Manny Klepper, a Lafayette resident, will follow a brief Sabbath service at 7:30 p.m. at Temple Shalom of Lafayette.

During the two-day Kristallnacht, at least 100 Jews were killed throughout Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia in November 1938. Nazi Party military forces arrested another 30,000 Jews and sent them to concentration camps.

“Mr. Klepper was a small child, a German Jew in Western Germany, who witnessed the Kristallnacht,” Frankel said. The professor’s talk is entitled "Kristallnacht in Context: International Anti-Semitism in 1938."

The Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass, refers to the shards of glass that littered streets after windows of thousands of Jewish homes, hospitals, synagogues and businesses were shattered, according to information at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website, .

Nazi officials depicted the Kristallnacht as a justified reaction to the assassination of German foreign official Ernst vom Rath. He had been shot two days earlier by a 17-year old Polish Jew distraught over the deportation of his family from Germany.

All told, more than 6 million Jews were killed as a result of the Holocaust during World War II.

For more information about the free event, which is open to the public, contact Frankel at frankel@louisiana.edu or (337) 482-1115.