A pawn in a deadly game

On 7 November 1938, the 17-year-old Herschel Grynszpan walked into the German embassy in Paris. Claiming to have secret papers, he was shown into the office of an embassy secretary, Ernst vom Rath. Drawing a tiny revolver — the price tag still attached from that morning’s purchase —  he fired five shots, shouting: ‘You’re a filthy Kraut, and in the name of 12,000 Jews, here is your document.’ Two of the bullets struck Vom Rath, who died two days later.

The previous month, close to 18,000 Polish German Jews had been dumped by train on the Polish border. Among those  rounded up in Hanover for the Aktion were Grynszpan’s family: his parents Sendel and Rivka, his brother Mordecai and his sister Berta. Herschel himself had been sent to Paris two years earlier by his parents for his own safety, and lived there with his aunt and uncle, in Casablanca-esque limbo,  along with some other 50,000 refugees from Nazi persecution.