kristallnacht

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from German Kristallnacht (“night of broken glass”, literally “crystal night”).

noun

  1. The night of November 9–10, 1938, when a state-organized night of terror was staged against Jews in Germany and Austria.“The Kristallnacht was a monumental development in Nazi anti-Jewish policy for several reasons. It was the single instance of large-scale, public, and organized physical violence against Jews inside Germany before the Second World War.”