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Fuld spoke about the importance of Kristallnacht and its involvement in the onset of the Holocaust. Photos depicting the people and events that Fuld addressed in his speech were shown as well.

A candle lighting ceremony and prayers in memory of victims of the Holocaust led by Beth El's cantor Larry Brandspiegel preceded the speech.

"A more prophetic definition of Kristallnacht is that Kristallnacht was the prelude to the Holocaust," Fuld said. "Unfortunately, nobody could recognize it as such, and obviously, could not foresee the horrors which would follow just several years later."

Fuld began his speech explaining the environment he lived in before Kristallnacht took place. Fuld said that he was brought up in the small town in southern Germany, where the Jewish-not Jewish relations were all right for the most part. His father owned a successful large box store. Before 1933, his community established a secular Hebrew school, "so I therefore never had to attend a public school and endure the anti-Semitism that so many Jewish children had to endure in Germany," Fuld said.

As the years wore on, Fuld said, the anti-Semitism in his tiny town became more prominent. Fuld was soon banned from public parks and various other public places. The ever-growing presence of Hitler Youth made it dangerous for Fuld to walk the streets, and he soon had to be accompanied by an adult wherever he went. The Nazi regime began to censor newspapers, ban some books from libraries, and hold public book burnings of Jewish authors. About a year before Kristallnacht, Fuld's father needed to close his successful store because of the Nazi picketing outside of it every day.

"Customers began fearing to enter my father's store, and eventually, he did have to close it," Fuld said. "He had to sell the building and our home."

Fuld also discussed the historical context of Kristallnacht.

"The pretext for Kristallnacht was the Nov. 7 assassination of Ernst vom Rath, a diplomat in the German embassy in Paris," Fuld explained. Herschel Grynszpan became distraught at the expulsion of thousands of Polish Jews in eastern Germany and assassinated vom Rath at the embassy. Kristallnacht was the Nazi regime's response to the assassination, although Fuld and many others believe that it was a "well-coordinated effort long before the assassination."

"I think the Germans were just waiting for something to happen in order to trigger the event," Fuld said. "More than 7,500 Jewish homes and stores were vandalized during that evening. During this pogrom, approximately 100 Jews were killed. The day after Kristallnacht, more than 30,000 Jewish adult males were arrested and sent to concentration camps."

Among those was Fuld's father, who was taken to Dachau and died several days later.

"Obviously, we knew that his death was not due to natural causes and we did not find out the circumstances of his death until after the war," Fuld said. "My mother, who showed enormous strength during these difficult moments, was able to have my father's remains released by the officials in Dachau and have my father buried in a Jewish cemetery in Europe."

Many prisoners were released upon signing an agreement that they and their families would leave Germany within six months after their release. Although Fuld's family was not bound by such an agreement, they secured boarding passes onto the St. Louis, where they eventually ended up in England and escaped the war.

"The St. Louis is a whole other story," Fuld said. His story was recently featured in a documentary on the St. Louis.

Fuld concluded his speech with the importance of educating those in holocaust studies.

"We're all familiar with the vile anti-Semitic rhetoric from President Ahmadinejad of Iran and he, unfortunately, is not alone," Fuld said. "He is powered by Chavez of Venezuela and of course many others in the Arab countries. Fortunately, we live in the United States, where anti-Semitism is not as prevalent as in any other countries, especially in Europe."

One way to combat this is with education. Fuld praised New Jersey's education department for making Holocaust education mandatory in all public schools.

"A recent teachers' conference, which I attended at Brookdale in Red Bank, emphasized that it is very important to make [the Holocaust] relevant to current events," Fuld said. "Unfortunately, that is not so difficult today."