Vienna
Leopoldstadt, the second district, with its large Jewish population, was a particular target of Kristallnacht. I recall staying up and watching some of the destruction through the curtain of our apartment's window. When we saw SS men walking up our street, followed by trucks, my father went into hiding in our attic. With hearts pounding, we turned off the apartment's lights, hoping for danger to pass. To our relief the SS men did not enter the building and my father escaped arrest. However, my grandfather on my mother's side, living quietly with his wife in another area of Vienna, was arrested and taken to a concentration camp, where he perished. I remember my grandfather as a kind and gentle man, a gifted storyteller, whom we frequently visited in his Vienna apartment. His death, in a direct way affecting my family, represents the millions of Holocaust victims who were to follow.
I saw Kristallnacht as a particularly virulent expression of the Nazism which multiplied until Germany was defeated. At that time I had no way of knowing that later I would be directly involved in the process of bringing the perpetrators of this barbarism to justice.