Kristallnacht: The Canary in the Coal Mine

Looking back on history, there are moments in which we should have seen what was coming. Instead, we looked away and in doing so, opened the door to death and destruction.

Kristallnacht is one of those moments. The 84th anniversary was this past Wednesday and Thursday.

On November 10, 1938 — exactly 84 years ago — my great-grandfather got a call at 5 a.m.

He was a congregational rabbi in Hamburg, Germany, and he was warned against going to synagogue that morning amid the devastation of Kristallnacht.

But he went anyway.

— Amy Spiro (@AmySpiro) November 10, 2022

It takes something deep and powerful inside of us to go through something like the Holocaust and still thrive. I would love to say that we all have learned from the past. But being that antisemitism is once more rearing its ugly head.

It should have been the veritable canary in the coal mine. I can’t help but wonder how many millions of lives might have been saved had the world not turned its back.

But we will never know how a war might have been prevented and an entire generation lost to hate.

Advertisement

Flashback Friday: 3 Ninjas (1992)

The bond between a grandparent and their grandchildren is an important one. It has the potential to forever have an effect on the younger generation, regardless of their age.

In the 1990s film, 3 Ninjas, Rocky (Michael Treanor), Colt (Max Elliott Slade), and Tum Tum (Chad Power) spend every summer with their grandfather (Victor Wong). Grandpa is a Ninjutsu master who has taught his grandsons everything he knows.

They are kidnapped by Snyder (Rand Kingsley), a former pupil of their grandfather’s. Snyder plans to use the boys to get to their FBI agent father Sam (Alan McRae). He thinks that his plans will work. He has no idea that the kids can fight back.

Obviously, this is a kid’s movie. Anyone over a certain age will likely pass on it.

Looking back, I was the perfect age for the film when it was released 30 years ago. But as an adult, I obviously look at it with different eyes. Beyond the lack of female characters outside of the traditional roles, the narrative is simplistic and almost too predictable.

Do I recommend it? Maybe.