TRANSCRIPT:
Members of the Jewish Community have gathered to commemorate the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht.
'The night of broken glass' refers to the shattered glass left by Nazi vandalism on Jewish storefronts and synagogues in 1938.
This week, Jewish communities around the world stand together to mourn the November Pogrom of 1938 and the terrors that followed.
Holocaust survivor Esther Wise lives in Melbourne and told SBS the arrest of her mother in 1949 broke something in her that she cannot explain.
"How to explain to somebody, even to my children. In '49 when my mother was arrested, something inside me... broke completely. Even after the liberation, the end of the war. I come here, I marry here, everything, and it still... this feeling, this didn't leave me. I've still got it, it's like a package inside me, empty, broken or something like this and I don't know. I cannot explain."
Kristallnacht marked a turning point in the Nazi regime's organised persecution of Jews.
On November 9 and 10, 1938, Nazi soldiers raided Jewish-owned businesses, homes and places of worship, littering the streets with broken glass.
The event is a significant marker in the lead-up to a genocide that came to be known as The Holocaust.
In Germany, over 2,000 people marched from Cologne Cathedral to the Synagogue to mark the anniversary.
Markus Peters was among them.
"For me, it is important that there is not a millimetre of room for anti-Semitism here in Germany. I think that's the essential message that really needs to come from the centre of society right now. And I find everything else totally intolerable. And that's why we have to be here today and march."
Memorials and events are being held by Jewish diaspora around the world, some of whom still remember the day.
Inevitably, some participants carried signs and banners referring to the current conflict in the Middle East.
But for many in the community, including Esther Wise, the day serves as a reminder not to forget and not to repeat.
"I hope it doesn't happen again. It's a terrible thing. It's a massacre. It's blood, everybody in my mind after what I pass is to say, if you cut yourself, you got red blood, I got red blood and that person got red blood. Everybody, why? Why people want to do such a dirty filthy things?"
