As the world pauses to remember Kristallnacht, the infamous Night of Broken Glass that unleashed a wave of terror on Jews in Nazi Germany 87 years ago, the voices of its survivors are echoing with renewed urgency. Three men who lived through the violence as children—Walter Bingham, George Shefi, and Paul Alexander—have come together in Jerusalem, their warnings sharpened by the alarming resurgence of antisemitism across the globe.
On November 9, 1938, Nazi mobs rampaged through German and Austrian cities, shattering windows of Jewish-owned businesses, torching synagogues, and attacking Jewish families in their homes. According to Israel’s Yad Vashem and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, at least 91 people were killed, more than 7,500 businesses were vandalized, and over 1,400 synagogues were set ablaze. Around 30,000 Jewish men were arrested, many sent to concentration camps such as Dachau and Buchenwald, where hundreds perished or took their own lives.
Walter Bingham, now 101, was just 14 when the violence erupted. Speaking at Jerusalem’s Great Synagogue, he recalled the morning after Kristallnacht in his hometown of Mannheim: "We live in an era equivalent to 1938, where synagogues are burned, and people in the street are attacked." Bingham’s words, reported by The Associated Press and Fox News Digital, are not just memories—they are a warning. He sees chilling parallels between the hatred of the past and today’s climate, especially in the wake of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
Bingham’s own journey after Kristallnacht was marked by heartbreak and resilience. Months after the pogrom, he was sent to England on the Kindertransport—a British rescue mission that saved nearly 10,000 Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Europe. He never saw his mother again, and his father died in the Warsaw Ghetto. Despite this, Bingham built a life of purpose, serving in the British military, later becoming a journalist, and now holding the Guinness World Record as the world’s oldest working journalist.
He is not alone in his warnings. George Shefi, now 94, remembers the terror of being confined indoors for three days during Kristallnacht, only to emerge to a world of shattered glass and jeering crowds. He too escaped to England via the Kindertransport, but his mother was murdered in Auschwitz. Shefi has devoted his later years to sharing his story with more than 12,000 students, urging them to recognize that while they are not responsible for the crimes of their ancestors, they are responsible for ensuring such horrors never happen again. "The Holocaust followed years of indoctrination under the Nuremberg Laws," he tells young Germans, emphasizing that hatred must be confronted early.
Paul Alexander, 90, was less than a year old during Kristallnacht. His parents, recognizing the danger, sent him to England just weeks later. "It was because of Kristallnacht that the Jewish people in England decided they must save Jews and get them out as quickly as possible," he told the International March of the Living. Remarkably, Alexander was one of the few Kindertransport children to later reunite with both parents, and he eventually moved to Israel.
On this anniversary, the three survivors issued a joint statement with the International March of the Living, their words a stark indictment of the present: "With today’s antisemitic atmosphere, pogroms against Jews can happen again." They described how, as children, they saw "how hatred turned to flames, how indifference became complicity, and how the world stayed silent as Jews were attacked." Their message was clear: "Today, 87 years later, we look around us and say with deep pain: the world has learned nothing. Once again, Jews are murdered for being Jews. Once again, synagogues are attacked. Once again, universities remain silent in the face of incitement. In today’s atmosphere, Kristallnacht could happen again."
Their warnings are not mere rhetoric. The statistics are grim. According to a new report from Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, since October 7, 2023, antisemitic incidents have sharply increased worldwide. Over the past two years, seven Jews were murdered in antisemitic attacks in the United States and Europe, including two men killed in a deadly assault outside a synagogue in Manchester, England, on Yom Kippur in October 2025. In Melbourne, Australia, a synagogue was set ablaze in 2024 in what the country’s prime minister condemned as an antisemitic attack. The report also documented 99 attacks on synagogues, 98 on Jewish-owned businesses, 14 cemetery desecrations, and 182 incidents targeting Jewish schools and community centers.
The United States has not been immune. The Anti-Defamation League reported 9,354 antisemitic incidents across the country in 2024—a 5% increase from the previous year, a staggering 344% rise over five years, and an 893% jump over the past decade. These numbers, cited by Fox News Digital, underscore the scale of the problem and the urgency of the survivors’ call to action.
Yet, as Bingham points out, there is one crucial difference between then and now: "In those days, the Jewish mentality was apologetic. Please don’t do anything to me, I won’t do anything to you. Today, we have, thank God, the state of Israel, a very strong state." He believes that while antisemitism persists, the existence of Israel is a bulwark against another Holocaust. "The one thing that will not happen would be a Holocaust, because the state will see to it that doesn’t happen," he said.
Still, the survivors insist that education and vigilance are essential. "Antisemitism, I don’t think, will ever fully disappear because it’s the panacea for all ills of the world," Bingham told The Associated Press. Their joint statement urges governments to act decisively to eradicate antisemitism and to strengthen Holocaust education: "Learn history. Teach your children what happens when the world stays silent." They warn, "Antisemitism does not disappear on its own. It grows when met with silence and thrives where ignorance prevails. It stops only when courageous people—Jews and non-Jews alike—stand up and say: enough."
With approximately 70% of the estimated 200,000 remaining Holocaust survivors expected to pass away within the next decade, their testimonies are more vital than ever. The International March of the Living’s CEO, Scott Saunders, put it bluntly: "Kristallnacht was a warning. Today we issue another: a pogrom against Jews can happen again."
As the 87th anniversary of Kristallnacht is marked, the message from those who survived it is unmistakable: the world must not repeat the mistakes of the past by remaining silent in the face of hatred. Their stories, and their warnings, demand to be heard—now more than ever.
