On the night of November 9-10, 1938 Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda for Adolph Hitler, organized the systematic destruction of synagogues throughout Nazi Germany. Besides the sacrilegious destruction of houses of Jewish worship, Jewish businesses and shops (with their storefront glass windows, hence "Kristallnacht") were also destroyed. During this orgy of violence 30,000 Jews were taken prisoner that same night and sent off to concentration camps; and the remaining Jews were fined $400,000,000 in damages.
This news was detailed in newspapers all over the globe. Since it was still Hitler's stated position that Jews were free to leave Germany if they wanted to, the reality was that other countries, including our own, refused most of them entry.
American Jews begged our US government to allow their persecuted kinsmen entry, but American officials stated that the law only allowed a quota of 30,000 Germans that year, and the quota had already been reached - mostly by non-Jewish Germans.
So, the laws in Germany were terrible; and that particular law in the USA was used to deny entry to those who would soon be exterminated in Nazi concentration camps.
70 years later we still need to recognize that laws are born of the soil of values, prejudices and attitudes of the people who make up the society. How, then, can we influence our society's values when it comes to the sanctity of life? Only when that influence is received and accepted will our laws reflect a culture of life.
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