By Chris Nafekh, Staff Writer

Published in print Mar. 17, 2015

On the Tuesday before break, UNCG welcomed Alfred Schnog, an eyewitness to the rise of Nazi Germany and a survivor of Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass. After an inquisitive question and answer session, Schnog gave a keynote speech titled “Prelude to Genocide.” He shared the story of his family’s brave escape from Nazi Germany and tales of his parent’s bold defiance in the face of evil.

“As scholars we must look to the past to understand present and future,” said Susan Rinner, associate professor of German studies. Dr. Rinner was one of four panelists in the Q&A session alongside Roy Schwartzman, Lynda Kellam and Emily Levine, all of whom teach classes related to The Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

Dr. Levine is also a published scholar of German history, and Dr. Schwartzman is a communications professor whose work is supported by the North Carolina Council on the Holocaust and the Jewish Chautauqua Society.

This semester, Professor Kellam is teaching an experimental political science class. PSC-300: The Politics of Genocide delves into human rights abuses and the conditions that lead to mass killings. The class spans the twentieth century, covering the events in Armenia, Germany and Cambodia just to name a few. Together, these faculty members have founded the UNCG Holocaust and Genocide Studies Network.

“Many students and faculty have expressed interest,” said Dr. Schwartzman. “The ultimate goal, of course, is to do our part to prevent the reoccurrence of these tragedies.”

As a community of scholars, students and professors, this network would collaborate on emerging research projects and support community outreach. Schwartzman commented that the network may include clusters of genocide-focused classes and more events like this one.

In April the network will sponsor a campus-wide workshop on the use of the Visual History Archive, an online database that contains over 52,000 survivor testimonies of genocide horror. Later in the year, they will host a public screening of the film “Ida,” a drama about a Polish holocaust survivor turned nun.

“It’s easy for us to become distant and desensitized to mass atrocities that fill the Internet, the airwaves, and the history books,” commented Dr. Schwartzman in a follow-up email. “People like Alfred Schnog bring a unique human face to these events. He and other survivors enable us to recognize the threat of genocide as a lived experience, not an abstract casualty toll.”

Kristallnacht is regarded as the beginning of the Nazi regime’s final solution against Jews; it was the culmination of political and social tensions, hate speech and mass propaganda. On November ninth 1938 the Nazi military, Hitler youth and non-Jewish German citizens carried out a night of destruction and violence later to be described as a “wild orgy of looting and terror” by The Dallas Morning News.

The violence was focused on the destruction of Jewish owned businesses and property, but the true number of Jews killed may never be known. Thousands were arrested and sent to concentration camps.

Alfred’s family knew that their best bet was to leave Germany as soon as possible. Thanks to his father’s business they were able to buy train tickets to Holland. The next night they would leave their hometown of Cologne and head towards the boarder. On the night of broken glass, they stayed in a hotel close to the station.

Just as he and his brother were drifting to sleep, Alfred’s parents shook them awake. Sitting on their parents’ shoulders, the boys looked out the hotel windows.

“What we saw,” said Schnog, “was the most extraordinary riot. Hitler youths and black shirts picked up rocks and bricks, throwing them into shop windows, yelling anti-Semitic words. We stood with our mouths agape.” His parents told him, “Never forget what you see here tonight,” and he never did.  

“I’m one of the lucky ones, to be able to get out of Germany and escape by the skin of my teeth, just as the doors closed behind me,” said Schnog. “And I am forever grateful for that.”

Others have not been as fortunate. Although the Holocaust brought genocide international recognition as a punishable crime, it has not ended. Cambodia in the seventies, Iraq in the nineties and the ongoing conflict in Darfur are only a few examples.

“Given the right conditions, any of us could be the next victims, or the next perpetrators,” said Dr. Schwartzman. “Alfred’s story is our story. I hope that we can find resonance as citizens of this country to prevent future incidents of genocide.”