About the Author

Richard Cochrane is trained in chemistry and metallurgy but is far more interested and practiced as a political and fund raising consultant, writer and amateur historian. He grew up in a Navy family and with his two younger brothers carried on its 500+ year tradition of naval service to Great Britain and the USA then enjoyed a career with one of the largest advertising and public relations agencies working with numerous Fortune 500 companies and many of America's premier educational institutions. He maintains friendships and acquaintanceships around the world. He lives in Santa Barbara, California.

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Kristallnacht Synagogue Resurrection Called Modern Miracle

June 28th, 2008 • Richard Cochrane
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70 years and $60 million70-Years After Destruction Largest Synagogue in Germany Is Rededicated.

On November 7, 1938, Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year old German Jew enraged by his family’s expulsion from Germany, walked into the German Embassy in Paris and shot and killed a junior diplomat, Ernst vom Rath. That set off a chain of events culminating in Kristallnacht [kr,ɪst.aɫ.n'ɒxt] (literally Crystal night) a pogrom in Nazi Germany on 9-10 November 1938 from streets covered with shattered glass. On a single night, 91 Jews were murdered, and 25,000-30,000 were arrested and deported to concentration camp. 2,000 synagogues were destroyed or damaged; and more homes and businesses ransacked or burned.

Yesterday almost 70-years after Kristallnacht Germany’s biggest synagogue accommodating some 1,200 on Rykestrasse in Berlin, and one of those destroyed that night, has reopened after a lavish $60 million restoration. The rededication of the hundred year-old neoclassic building was attended by officials, religious leaders, and holocaust survivors and described as a modern day miracle.

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