Why Did the Nazis Burn the Hebrew Bible? Nazi Germany, Representations of the Past, and the Holocaust

The Nazis did burn the Hebrew Bible, on Nov 9 and 10, 1938--not one copy, but thousands; not in one place, but in hundreds of communities across the Reich; and not only in metropolises such as Berlin, Stettin, Vienna, Dresden, Stuttgart, and Cologne, but also in small communities such as Sulzburg, a Protestant village in Baden with 1,070 inhabitants, 120 among them Jewish, where the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments were thrown from the roof and the Nazis marched mockingly up and down the main Street with the Torah scrolls before destroying them. By fire and other means, the destruction of the Book of Books was at the center of Kristallnacht, when 1,400 synagogues were set on fire. Destroying the Hebrew Bible in small communities was an open event that no one could ignore. Key players were often children, whose action is a sensitive barometer of adult perceptions. Confino discusses why the Nazis burnt the Hebrew Bible and looks at the Nazi Germany, representations of the past and the Holocaust.