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Elsbeth Rosenfeld talks about Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass) - an organised nationwide attack on Jews - and compares it to a declaration of war. After a description of the horror of that night and how she survived, the question ‘why Jews didn’t just leave?’ is discussed. She explains that one-third of them did leave, but it was made very difficult both by the Germans and other countries that imposed limits on the numbers of refugees that they would take.

Ask students how they would have responded in Elsbeth’s position. Investigate case studies of Jewish people caught up in the events and how they responded. Look into how conditions for Jewish people continued to deteriorate after Kristallnacht. Have the class list reasons why it became more difficult for Jewish people to leave Germany and why other countries denied them entry. The 1939 voyage of the MS St Louis, could be used as a case study of Jewish refugees refused entry to Cuba, the USA and Canada.