![Portrait of Herschel Grynszpan taken after his arrest by French authorities for the assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath. [LCID: 05151]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/be42daeb-b120-4b22-b1c0-23a7d5652708.jpg)
Portrait of Herschel Grynszpan taken after his arrest by French authorities for the assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath. Grynszpan (1921-1943?).
Born in Hannover, Germany, was the son of Polish Jews who had immigrated to Germany. In 1936 Grynszpan fled to Paris. On November 7, 1938, after having learned of the expulsion of his parents from Germany to Zbaszyn the Polish frontier, Grynszpan assassinated Ernst vom Rath, the third secretary of the German embassy in Paris. The diplomat's subsequent death two days later was used by the Nazi regime as justification for unleashing the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 9–10. In 1940 Grynszpan was turned over to the Germans by the Vichy government, but the date and place of his death have never been clarified.
Photograph taken in Paris, France, November 7, 1938.
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