ABSTRACT
Within Jewry's greatest tragedy since the destruction of the Temple, better known as the Holocaust, there shone a few bright lights, which stand out all the more in stark contrast to the darkness that pervaded German-occupied Europe. Two tragic events of 1938 turned out to be blessings in disguise. The first occurred on March 13th, when Hitler's troops marched into Vienna to begin the Anschluss. The second, even more terrifying event is the better-known Kristallnacht of November 9–10, 1938, when the full impact of Nazi fury was unleashed on German Jewry during one night, shocking them into the realization that they could no longer make accommodation to the new Nazi order and somehow outlive its maniacal leader. While the democracies closed their doors, there suddenly loomed on the very distant horizon, more than 8,000 miles away, the incredible spectacle of a large metropolis that actually beckoned to German and Austrian Jews to come, without papers of any kind.
