An audio recording of a live performance in the Purcell Room on 18th July 1988, directed by Derek Wax.

As we approach and then pass the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht in November 2013, remembering a night when violence against the Jewish people was unleashed in German lands on an unprecedented scale in a coordinated and comprehensive rampage, we felt it important to make available as an educational resource the programme of testimonies that we presented 25 years ago in 1988, at the Southbank Centre. It was part of the first academic conference on the Holocaust – an endeavour to understand the enormity of what had happened to the Jewish people during the years 1939 to 1945.

On 9 – 10 November 1938 Jewish businesses were smashed and more than 1000 synagogues were set on fire and destroyed. Jews were chased and beaten up in the streets. It was the precursor of what became during the Second World War, the industrialised terrorising, imprisoning and killing of six million Jews, as well as others, in the concentration camps and death camps created by the Nazis for their so called ‘Final Solution’ to their ‘Jewish problem’.

The 24 pieces of testimony – not only of victims and survivors, but also of the perpetrators – are powerful reminders of what happens when a society falls victim to its baser instincts. It is hoped that these readings and scripts will inspire a new generation to act differently.