The November progroms (‘Reichskristallnacht’)
On the night of 9/10 November 1938, members of the SA, SS, NSDAP, HJ and other Nazi organisations carried out Jewish pogroms throughout the Greater German Reich. Synagogues were set on fire and around 7,000 Jewish retailers‘ shops and homes were vandalised. Furthermore, Jewish cemeteries were desecrated and Jews were abused on the streets. An unknown number of Jews were deported to various concentration camps such as Dachau.
In Hof, the worst acts of violence of the pogrom began at around 5 o’clock. Shortly after the keys to the club rooms in the synagogue building in Hallstraße were handed over to a man in civilian clothes, banging and crashing could be heard on the ground floor. Although the synagogue building itself was not set on fire – as in many other large cities – all the furnishings, chairs, armchairs, benches, boards, window crosses, prayer books and Torah scrolls were carried outside by the perpetrators. They were piled up in a heap on Hallplatz and later burnt down at the Saaledurchstich. The attack was carried out by members of the SA and SS. The mayor of Schwarzenbach and the mayor of Hof were also present. The synagogue building was demolished on 15 December 1938.
The Jewish citizens were taken from their homes that night and arrested. They were taken to the district court prison (today Klostertor 2-4). Today, this building houses the Diakonie old people’s home. After the Jewish residents of Hof, Jews from other places in the region were also brought in. 18 prisoners were released over the next few days. Further men from Bayreuth, Kulmbach, Coburg and the Lichtenfels area were subsequently transferred to Hof. On 17 November 1938, 54 prisoners were to be transported by train to the Dachau concentration camp. As the camp was overcrowded, the transport ended in Regensburg, where they were taken to the prison in Augustenstraße. After five days, they were transferred back to Hof and released in the course of the next few days.