Memory of the "Kristallnacht," the night of the breaking glass, November 9, 1938, remained forever vivid in Max Reschke's mind. His wife had taken some goose down pillows to a shop to be cleaned. The shop was owned by a Jewish couple named Scheurenberg. They were, if not friends, at least close acquaintances of the Reschkes. The day Max went to pick up the pillows turned out to be the day of the "spontaneous uprising against the Jews." When he arrived at the shop location, a brown-shirted storm trooper blocked access to the staircase leading to the upstairs shop.

Politely Max asked if he might pass please. The man said, "Nobody goes up to that Jewish pigsty." Max's temper, which he normally kept under control, quickly flared up. He warned the man that he had better move at the count of three. Foolishly the unsuspecting fellow did not budge when three was up. At the end of the count Max applied some sort of Judo grip, swung the brown-shirt over his head and laid him out on the sidewalk.

Stepping over the man, Max made his way upstairs. The sight that awaited him was shocking. There were feathers all over the room. Furniture and equipment had been smashed. Human feces had been smeared on the walls, the windows, and the ceilings.

In a flash Max sized up the situation. He also realized the danger he was in and thinking about his family he ran back down the stairs. Stepping over the still unconscious man, he was able to hide in a house entrance just as he regained consciousness and sounded the alarm. When the sound of running feet had subsided, Max came out of hiding and went home.

The family sat stunned listening to Max's description of the goings on in downtown Hannover that night. The display windows of the Jewish stores were being smashed by hordes of people. The synagogue was on fire. The Jewish people were being herded through the streets, some of them in their nightclothes.

Suddenly Max jumped up with a start. "I forgot to check on the Scheurenbergs," he exclaimed. His wife begged him to stay at home, but he would not. Two hours later he came back with the bedraggled couple. He had found them at the end of a column of people being herded through the streets by armed guards. Calmly Max stepped up to a uniformed guard and, flipping his overcoat lapel in the manner of a German plainclothes policeman showing his concealed badge, he said, pointing to the Scheurenbergs, "I'll take these two." "Very well, Sir!" the guard said, saluting.

That very night, in all the commotion and turmoil all over Germany, Max drove the Scheurenbergs across the border into Switzerland. They escaped to Shanghai, China, and thus went from the "frying pan into the fire," in the war and anarchy that reigned there. But they came back after the war to tell the story and to thank Max for what he had done for them.