On November 7, 1938, a young Jewish refugee named Herschel Grynszpan shot and killed Nazi diplomat Ernst vom Rath in Paris. This assassination provided the Nazis with the pretext to start the Kristallnacht program, which effectively kicked the Holocaust into high gear. Grynszpan almost escaped, but the Nazis seized him when they invaded France. His trial was supposed to be a symbol of Jewish betrayal, but due to the war, it kept getting postponed. If Grynszpan survived the war at all, he never came forward to family or friends. He was last seen in 1943.