The Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht) was not a "Pogrom" - it is actually a new name that gives a false picture of history. Pogrom has always been related to Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Who starts such confusing name changes, and who joins in?

Swedish Museum about the Holocaust

In Malmö and in Denmark, Jewish people have not been influenced by the left. 

Krystalgade Synagogue

The name change to 'the November pogrom' is not a neutral historical correction, but a deliberate political linguistic evolution driven by leftist groups and adopted by the establishment.

The Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht) was not a "Pogrom" - it is actually a new name that gives a false picture of history. Pogrom has always been related to Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Who starts such confusing name changes, and who joins in?

In Malmö and in Denmark, Jewish people have not been influenced by the left. Their synagogue - Københavns store Synagoge (The Great Synagogue of Copenhagen) is located at Krystalgade 12. However, Krystalgade has nothing in common with Crystal Night; the street has roots in the 1400s. From the 1600s, it was officially called Skidenstræde ("Shit Lane"), and therefore the name was changed in 1818 to the existing one.

The Night of Broken Glass was not a pogrom - it is actually the new name that gives a false picture of history. Pogrom has always been related to Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Who starts such confusing name changes, and who stands behind them?

It is a historically very interesting and correct point I want to raise regarding the origin of the word. The word Pogrom originally comes from Russian (погром) and means "to create havoc" or "devastate". It began to be used internationally during the 1800s and early 1900s specifically to describe the recurring, violent, and often Russian-led massacres against Jews in the Russian Empire, which included today's Ukraine and Belarus.

Using the word pogrom to describe the events in Germany in 1938 has therefore faced criticism, precisely because it risks confusing two different historical phenomena. Russian pogroms were often rabble violence that was tolerated or encouraged by the Tsar's police force.

The Night of Broken Glass – The Night of Smashed Glass – thus, the events in Nazi Germany were, by contrast, a systematic, top-down, and state-planned act of violence. It was not just the German rabble that joined in.

It was absolutely not the "rabble" (in the sense of poor, uneducated, or marginalized social groups) that participated in the Night of Broken Glass. On the contrary, the violence was deeply anchored in all parts of German society, from the absolute elite to the middle class and the youth. What makes the Night of Broken Glass so terrifying is precisely that the perpetrators were often the victims' own acquaintances – their local baker, the neighbor's teenage son, the doctor, or the mailman – and not an anonymous, outside rabble.

One of the largest groups of active perpetrators was the Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend - HJ) and young university students. Teenagers and young adults were incited by their teachers and youth leaders to vandalize synagogues and loot shops. These young people often came from well-established middle- and upper-class homes, but were completely shaped by Nazi school propaganda. Once the violence broke out, many ordinary civilians joined in the looting and harassment. Those involved included small business owners who saw a chance to get rid of Jewish competitors, and people from the middle class who, under the cover of chaos, broke into their Jewish neighbors' apartments to steal furniture, art, clothing, and valuables. Historical documents show that even women and seemingly "respectable" family fathers participated in gathering goods thrown out into the streets.

In Sweden, the big problem is that others (politically correct loyalists) perceive this name change as OK and systematically begin using the left-wing, distorted inventions, such as the November pogrom.

The Jewish congregations in Malmö and Gothenburg have not allowed themselves to be influenced and continue to remember the Night of Broken Glass.

In the 1970s, I attended a meeting with the VPK (Left Party - the Communists). It was called Café Marx on Kungsgatan. It was about the Night of Broken Glass. The people from the leftist groups already thought back then that the October Revolution and, for them, the November pogrom fit better.

As we all know, leftist groups eventually took over the celebration and commemoration of both. What I am writing is actually Living History. Naturally, some politically correct journalists and organizations have followed suit and changed the sign—no, not to Café Marx just yet, but to the November pogrom.

Will we soon change the Holocaust to "The Dark Years"?