Polish Mall Uses Kristallnacht as Slogan

By JTA September 20, 2012

A Polish mall used the term ‘Crystal Night’ as an advertising slogan.

“Rob the collection. Crystal Night of shopping,” was the new advertising slogan of Manufaktura Mall in Lodz, which appeared this week on billboards throughout the city.

After the intervention of city residents, the company has decided to change the billboards.

Crystal Night, or Kristallnacht, was the first pogrom against the Jews in Germany, in November 1938. German streets were filled with shards of glass and crystal from destroyed Jewish shops, homes and synagogues.

“I believe that this slogan was used unknowingly, because it could be used knowingly only by a madman. Crystal Night is associated around the world with the pogrom of Jews in the Third Reich,” Symcha Keller, the head of the Jewish Community in Lodz, told JTA.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO