To commemorate next week's anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogrom, students in Boca Raton and Hollywood will hear a unique perspective on the Holocaust--from the daughter of a Jewish activist who helped smuggle Jewish refugees out of Hitler Europe.

Deborah Benami-Rahm, of Plantation, the daughter of Holocaust rescue activist Yitshaq Ben-Ami, will speak at:

Monday, November 7 - 9:00 am at the Brauser Maimonides School, 5300 SW 40th Ave., Fort Lauderdale.

Tuesday, November 8 - 9:30 am at the Donna Klein Jewish Academy, 9701 Donna Klein Blvd, Boca Raton (in the Zinman Hall auditorium). 

The Kristallnacht pogrom was a nationwide torrent of anti-Jewish violence orchestrated by the government of Nazi Germany on November 9 and 10, 1938.  More than 100 Jews were murdered, nearly 200 synagogues were destroyed, and 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps.  Because thousands of windows in Jewish homes and stores were smashed, the violence became known as "Kristallnacht," that is, Crystal Night, or the Night of the Broken Glass.

Yitshaq Ben-Ami was part of a small group of Zionist activists from Palestine who smuggled boatloads of Jewish refugees from Europe to the Holy Land in the late 1930s.  In order to do so, they repeatedly bribed Nazi officials and risked arrest or worse.  In addition, they were acting in defiance of the British ruling authorities in Palestine, who had restricted Jewish immigration to that country in response to Arab violence.

Ms. Benami-Rahm's talks in Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton will mark the first time she has spoken in public about her father's amazing rescue mission.