In Trier has seen the public presentation of a previously unknown eyewitness account of Kristallnacht on 9 November 1938. The handwritten memoir of the later Susanne Apelt‑Fries, who experienced the violence when she was ten, was recently handed over to the initiative, according to the working group AG Frieden and presented at commemorative events in collaboration with SWR The person who brought it was her son, Engelbert Apelt.
The account describes how members of the Jewish Schneider family were dragged from their home at Eberhardstraße 1 . According to the notes, the father was driven onto a lorry with his violin and mocked by perpetrators and onlookers; the violin was “smashed over his head”, and the man was bleeding. Today, Stolpersteine at the address commemorate the former residents. AG Frieden and SWR quoted the account from the original and placed it in the context of local remembrance practices.
Historians in Trier regard these events as part of the nationwide wave of violence against Jewish people and institutions in November 1938. Synagogues burned in many cities, shops were destroyed, and people were assaulted, arrested or deported to concentration camps. For years, Trier’s city archive, initiatives and educational projects have documented locally preserved sources and biographies; the newly accessible memoir adds a child’s perspective on violence in the immediate neighbourhood to this collection.
The organisers say that the discovery is significant above all for education. It makes individual fates tangible and helps explain the causes, mechanisms and consequences of antisemitic exclusion. Representatives of AG Frieden point to the ongoing debate about how remembrance can be firmly embedded in schools, associations and public spaces over the long term. SWR presented the account around this year’s commemorative events and also referred in its coverage to current figures on antisemitic offences. The initiatives plan to include the document in future walking tours, teaching materials and exhibitions.
The account’s publication comes at a time when municipal institutions and civil society groups in Rhineland-Palatinate are expanding their educational programmes for 9 November. Trier has for some time offered guided city tours, readings and digital dossiers on the history of its Jewish community. The newly catalogued text by Susanne Apelt‑Fries adds to the number of reliable local historical sources documenting violence, complicity and turning a blind eye in people’s immediate surroundings – further refining both research and public discussion of the pogrom.
Editor: Celestina Fuentes (Article created with AI assistance).