As Graham, Evan, and I leave their after school program they pause to inspect a new installation reminding us of the pogroms which occured across Germany and Austria November 9 (this week) 1938.
“Why is the glass smashed?” Evan asks.
I know immediately that I don’t have an answer for him. He and his brother are six, and it’s not that I think they are incapable of understanding. It is much more, that I’m incapable of supplying an answer.
“It’s to remind us of a night a long time ago in Germany when angry people destroyed and burned down thousands of synagogues,” I tell them, thinking to myself as I say it, “Please don’t ask why.”
“And they threw bricks through the window?” Graham asks. The installation is literally a brick, lodged in a shattered pain of glass.
“Yeah,” I tell them. “See at the top where it says, ‘Kristallnacht?’ That’s German for Crystal Night, or we call it in English the Night of Broken Glass. Stormtroopers, the SA, led violent riots all over Germany. They smashed all the windows of the synagogues.”
“That sounds pretty scary,” Evan says staring up at the brick and cracked glass.
“Yeah,” I say adding, “It happened a long time ago, and you don’t have to be afraid.” I’m not positive I believe myself, but I hope they believe me anyway.
We turn to walk out the door, and I am relieved to be free of the tough question.
We skip down the stairs, all three of us holding hands, their backpacks swinging. Evan does a spin around the small tree outside, and I begin to ask Graham if he picked out a new book during library hour.
“Why did they do that?” he asks, holding my hand and looking up at me.
“Why did who do what?” I say, though I know the answer.
“Why did they smash all the windows?”
“You don’t have to worry about it, Bud. Mom and I will take care of you,” I tell him, and I actually pat his head.
That’s all I’ve got, and I’ve rarely felt like such a failure.