In our collective memory of the Holocaust, Kristallnacht occupies a central but ambiguous place. If you look simply at the statistics, there is little reason why the events of November 9-10, 1938, should loom so large. According to the Nazis themselves, 91 Jews were killed in the nationwide pogrom that became known as the “Night of Broken Glass.” That figure, as Alan Steinweis points out in his illuminating new study Kristallnacht 1938, “included neither Jewish suicides nor the significantly larger number of Jews who were arrested in connection with the pogrom and would die in concentration camps in the following weeks and months.” But even when we remember that 30,000 Jewish men were arrested--about 10 percent of the entire Jewish population of Germany--Kristallnacht pales in comparison with later Nazi crimes. Why do Jews--and, as Steinweis points out, Germans--continue to remember Kristallnacht as a uniquely terrible event, even though the broken glass was followed, within a few years, by gas chambers and death camps?

Fifteen years ago, when I was a relatively young freelance writer with no health insurance (one of “the immortals,” as this group is sardonically referred to by medical professionals), I was being bothered by an ankle injury I’d suffered several years earlier. I made an appointment with a local orthopedist specializing in foot and ankle problems, hoping for some simple advice on how to make it hurt less. After filling out a form indicating I had no insurance, I handed it to the receptionist and asked her what the visit would cost. She said she didn’t know.