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For their own commemoration of the Night of Broken Glass, the East Brunswick Jewish Center dedicated two new stained-glass windows Nov. 8, on the eve of the 71st anniversary of Kristallnacht.

Kristallnacht, which is widely considered the beginning of the Holocaust, was a series of organized pogroms on Nov. 9-10, 1939, over Nazi-occupied areas and destroyed synagogues, Jewish businesses, and arrested Jewish men and sent them to concentration camps.

The ceremony consisted of testimonies of four Holocaust survivors and an award was presented to Robert Gangi, an East Brunswick High School teacher who dedicates much of his classroom time to Holocaust studies.

"We take this occasion in our synagogue to hope for a brighter future within our Jewish community, here within the East Brunswick Jewish Center as well as in our larger community," said EBJC Rabbi Aaron Benson.

The two stained-glass windows, which depict the Biblical story of Jacob's Ladder, are on long-term loan from the synagogue chapel in JFK International Airport. The two panels became part of a "Mended Promises" display in the temple's front lobby, alongside a Holocaust-era Torah that was returned to the display.

"Stained-glass is a counterpoint to the broken glass for which Kristallnacht is known," Benson said. "It... acknowledges the promise that Jews had living in central Europe, particularly in Germany before the Second World War, and see how that promise was so horrifically broken for the Jews and for all freedom-loving and democracy-loving people. We wanted to do something in our community to indicate how important it was to us."

Temple member Roslyn Zell read aloud from her late husband Paul's Kristallnacht memoirs, which describe his memories of Kristallnacht in Vienna, Austria, as a 13-year-old boy. On the morning of Kristallnacht, Paul went to his carpentry school. Later that night, Stormtroopers entered his family's apartment, looking to arrest all Jewish men. However, Paul's father was spared because he won medals while fighting for Austria during World War I.

"I can only speculate that this Nazi had also served in Austria in World War I, possibly on the same front as my father, the Italian front, and he was overcome with a huge sense of remorse," Roslyn read from Paul's memoirs. "I cannot think of any other reason."

The following morning, Paul walked through Vienna's 20th district and saw the still-smoldering ruins of Vienna's largest synagogue and the destroyed Jewish shops.

"What kind of person could perform such a heinous act, the burning down of a house of God? Was this to foreshadow even greater atrocities to come?" Paul questioned to himself in his memoirs. "What I did not know then was that all this destruction and the arrest of so many Jews was a planned pogrom. We now know that it was the unofficial beginning of the Holocaust."

Edith Foladare was 4 years old in Poland at the time of Kristallnacht. All the Jews in her town were arrested that night and held in the town's courthouse. Her father and grandfather were arrested and sent to a different jail. A Catholic family helped Foladare and her family escape and gave them space to hide in their attic until the Nazis left. All of her family's belongings were destroyed, but her American uncle had sponsored her family's immigration to America. Her mother went to the jail and got Foladare's father and grandfather out of jail, and they were able to escape before the Holocaust began.

"My uncle had already obtained the passports and everything else for us to come," Foladare said. "The Nazis let my father and my grandfather out because they knew we were leaving."

Max Shoeffler was 10 years old at the time of Kristallnacht in Berlin. His father was arrested on the night of Kristallnacht and the family's clothing store was destroyed. Shoeffler said that the Jews were left to clean the streets the morning after Kristallnacht, but the police, who were not Nazi sympathizers, had returned all the merchandise stolen from the store.

"I had gotten a wagon and I was told to go to the police station and pick up a bunch of merchandise that had wound up [there]," Shoeffler said. "They wanted somebody to pick it up and bring it back to the store because it was stolen. These being still policemen rather than Nazis decided to act kindly and in a civilized fashion."

Larry Fuld and his family boarded the infamous St. Louis voyage of May 1939 after his father was killed in Dachau. His mother had obtained quota numbers into America; however, their numbers would not be called until 1942, more than three years later. In order to find a way around this, his mother purchased landing permits to Cuba. The ship was turned away at Cuba after the government, bowing to increased anti-Semitism, revoked all the landing permits, and the ship sailed away.

Fuld and his family later fled to England, which was one of four countries that agreed to take the St. Louis passengers when the ship returned to Frankfurt.

"The voyage turned the St. Louis into a symbol of what can happen when economic self-interest, prejudice, and bureaucratic rigidity can prevent nations from doing what is right," Fuld said. "One of the most important lessons of this event is that inactivity in the face of evil can sometimes mean complicity with that evil."

After the survivors' presentations, Benson presented a community service award to Gangi, who teaches history and a special elective course on genocide at East Brunswick High School.

Gangi explained to the audience that Holocaust studies are crucial because they highlight what could happen when intolerance, prejudice, and injustice run amok, but he fell short of saying that students need to learn lessons from the Holocaust.

"While this seems like an obvious reason and a noble endeavor, there's a problem with using the word 'lessons' when dealing with the Holocaust, because that leads one step closer to justifying why it happened," Gangi said.

"[Gangi] is preparing the young people of our community so that they can understand just what is at stake when the forces of prejudice and intolerance raise their heads," Benson said. "Also, we can say thank you to him and set a precedent for our community, which acknowledges and goes to work for a tolerant and respectful society."