After learning that his family, along with thousands of Jews of Polish origin in Germany, had been deported to the German-Polish border town of Zbaszyn, Herschel Grynszpan decided to assassinate a German official in protest. On November 7, 1938 he shot the German embassy’s third secretary, Ernst vom Rath, at close range. The Germans used the assassination as an excuse to launch the Kristallnacht pogrom throughout Germany and Austria.
Yad Vashem Photo Archives 2987/2