Ernie Michel, née Wurzinger, was born on April 1, 1909 in Nuremberg, Germany. Two months after Kristallnacht, she left Germany -- at first to go to France -- and subsequently the United States. Q. Why don't you tell me about the circumstances that led up to Kristallnacht, and then your experience there? A. Ah, the circumstances leading up to the Kristallnacht, the Nazis used the excuse that one of their smaller employees of the Embassy in Paris was killed, allegedly by Jewish people. That was their excuse to break into all the homes on November 9th, 1938. All the Nazis who executed the breaking-in were well-trained, had fantastic tools to destroy everything, to break into homes which were not easily opened like ours. We didn't open the door. They had to break in. They had heavy tools to open and push open anything. This is one example of how well they were trained. We had a big black piano. They knew exactly what to do. With the heavy hammers, they cut all the ivory keys and then with other instruments, they cut the wires in the back, so they made the grand piano completely useless. But the frame was still standing there, as it wasn't touched at all. We had a huge radio with a loudspeaker built in. They knew exactly where to hit the apparatus. The frame wasn't touched. They cut all the tubes in the back and then took their knife or whatever and cut the loudspeaker. Q. So you feel that they had been trained beforehand for this? A. Oh, they were trained marvelously before. They knew exactly what to do. They came with their lists. They had all the addresses. They knew how to break into the buildings. They were well-prepared. No, that was not a spur of the moment thing. Q. How do you remember the whole thing starting? A. Hitler was talking in the newspaper and in his speeches of destroying the Jewish population. In Nuremberg, there was also one of the greatest antisemites, Julius Streicher, and he had a very antisemitic newspaper [Ed. note: Der Stürmer, or The Attacker]. He was talking all the time about our bad influence and what terrible people we are and also that we have to be destroyed because we are not worth being on this earth. The question was raised so often, over here particularly, why did you stay that long? I have two answers to that question. The most important one is that it was not a question of leaving your native country, it was a question of the other countries -- any other country who would let you in permanently, not with a three- or four-week visa, because you could never go back to Germany. So that was the most important thing to us, to find a country willing to take us in. Secondly, we lived a comfortable, normal lifestyle, just like American Jews living here. None of us were anxious to leave the country to start over with nothing and with mediocre jobs. When I finally saw after Hitler took over Austria and Sudetenland -- that was the first part of Czechoslovakia -- I knew that it looked bad, and I started to look around to leave the country. Q. Was that before Kristallnacht? R. A.Yes, I started to try to get to America in January 1938. Q. That's when you wanted to start looking around? A. I wanted to leave. Q. Okay, let’s get back a little to the Kristallnacht. A. It was a terrible experience for anybody who was there, of course for a Jew, but I would have to say it also was a terrible experience for all the gentile people living in the same buildings where Jewish people lived. The Nazis came in our place around one, one thirty in the night. We had no inkling, none whatsoever. Q. That this was going to happen that night? A. Right. Our entrance door had a glass portion and all of a sudden, we saw a lot of shad- ows. Q. Were you up . just happened to be up at that time? A. No, they rang the bell and made a lot of commotion and noise out there in front of the door, yelling, “Open up!” but we would not. My father at that time was not home and that was a lucky break for him. He was visiting one of his friends from the first World War, from the army. He had been an officer. It was only my mother and I who were home. The Nazis finally broke into our apartment, and there was a lot of noise right away. They stormed in, asked for my father, and we told them that he wasn't here. They spread out in every room. We were in a corner. We saw their big axe, and a very heavy in- strument which you use on a construction site, I would say, and they started immediately with breaking things apart. Then they took their knives out, opened the wardrobe, cut the clothes, cut triangles in the fur coats and the Persian rugs, making everything abso- lutely worthless. It was for about an hour and a half. They totally destroyed our apart- ment. They dumped the crystal and the silver. My mother was from a very fine family. Her father was a jeweler in Silesia for the court there. So when she got married, she had in her dowry beautiful silver and stuff. And they dumped the silver on the floor and stamped on it with their boots and just flattened it. Everything was a total destruction. The fine porcelain, they took the hammer and broke with all their might, through a stack of twenty-four plates or so. The noise was unbelievable. The noise was damaging to our ears and, of course, for our nerves. I still cannot stand any noise. If I go to an assembly with a lot of people, I have to be extremely careful. They were well-prepared. In the corner were my skis standing, because it was wintertime. You know November in Germany is wintertime. They just broke off the tips. At the very end, they took glass pots and threw them in the open cut bedding, in the down comforters and everything, so that we couldn't use our beds. Once they left, there was nothing, not a chair, nothing. Everything was demol- ished, even the big furniture. Q. Did they say anything to you during all of this? A. No, I do not remember. Their faces were red and full of hate. I would assume that they had plenty of alcohol in them or something which made them strong and full of hate -- unbelievable -- and ready to fight. They did some stealing, but obviously they were told not to touch the women. So nobody touched my mother or me. They threatened us, but they would not hit us or touch us. Q. What did they threaten you? A. With their looks, with their behavior, and with their tools. Q. How old were you at this time? A. I was already twenty-eight years old. When they left, the very last thing they cut were the crystal chandeliers, so we were in total darkness more or less. Maybe they overlooked one of the other ones. Q. And no other apartment in your building was touched? A. No, they were all gentiles and after they had left, the other people in the building saw them out there on the street and out of our neighborhood. They sneaked up quietly to our apartment and when they came, they put their finger in front of their mouths, not to speak to us, because they were afraid that maybe another party in the building was lis- tening and would know that they came up and wanted to look at what had happened here. So slowly, most of them came up, tip-toeing to see what happened. All they could do is to shake their head with the most misbelieving eyes and touch our shoulders. Q. Were the Germans clearly dressed as soldiers? They were in uniform? A. They were not dressed as soldiers. They were dressed as Nazis. They came in their brown uniforms with the Nazi sign, with their hats, and their big, black boots. They were not soldiers. They were Nazis. Q. What happened after they left? You just stood there in shock? A. Yes. We couldn't believe our own eyes. They tore all the books. There was nothing left. Were standing there and the people in our back apartment were very nice and suppor- tive. We had only one thought the next morning, how to find a workman who could fix the damage on our entrance door, so we could close the apartment again. And I was walking around completely dazed. I had to say, there were people around us and the people who knew us in our neighborhood. I went to the butcher who knew us also for fifteen years. When he saw me, he just silently shook his head and with his eyes let me know he felt sorry for me. Nobody would dare to say anything, but in the stores you saw the eyes and the unbelievable thinking of the people who knew you. Q. So there was a lot of fear in everyone? A. Oh, hundred percent fear in everybody. Q. Was there more antisemitism after that? A. That is a question which I cannot really answer. Maybe amongst the people who had no contact with Jewish people before, after they saw the synagogues all on fire, everything destroyed in the Jewish homes.