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1938: The End of Illusions
 pg. 146 
 
Four days after Kristallnacht, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Germany's Jews had to pay a one-billion Reichsmark fine for the violence and damage they had suffered. Sympathy for the Jewish plight in the U.S. press and among the public ran high, leading President Franklin Roosevelt to recall the American ambassador, Hugh Wilson, to Washington. No other official action was taken.
Photo: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive
Americans reacted with widespread outrage at the events of Kristallnacht. Some took to the streets to demonstrate their opposition to Nazi policies. In this New York City demonstration, participants called for an end to "Hitler's bloody pogroms." President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed his disbelief that such actions could occur "in a 20th-century civilization." Nevertheless, relatively few Americans advocated changing immigration quotas to allow more Jews a safe haven.
Photo: FPG International Corp
Formerly owned by Jews, this Frankfurt, Germany, rubber-ware store was turned over to "Aryan" proprietors Stamm and Bassermann. Aryanization of Jewish businesses began in 1933, as Jews were excluded from the nation's economic life. It accelerated after Kristallnacht with Hermann Göring's Decree Excluding Jews from German Economic Life. Stores, factories, and banks--often Jewish concerns for generations--were now forcibly Aryanized.
Photo: Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive
 December 1938: The British Cabinet allows 10,000 unaccompanied Jewish children into Britain in an action called the Kindertransport. (Britain, however, refuses to allow 21,000 more Jewish children into Palestine.) The rescued children come from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia with the help of British, Jewish, and Quaker welfare organizations. Because of the Holocaust, most of the children will never see their parents again, and many of the Jewish children will be converted to Christianity.
 
1938: The End of Illusions
 pg. 146 
The Holocaust Chronicle
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