It started with two bullets.

The morning of Nov. 7, 1938, 17-year-old Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish Jew furious over his family's expulsion from Germany and subsequent homelessness, purchased a revolver and ammunition. He then walked into the German embassy in Paris. Within moments the young man had shot Ernst vom Rath, a Nazi diplomat, twice in the abdomen.

Kristallnacht, the public violence against Jews residing in Germany that followed vom Rath's death, is widely regarded by historians and experts as the start of the Holocaust.

"Personally, I believe Kristallnacht marked the beginning of the world ignoring the tragic events of the Holocaust that continued to unfold from that point," said Morgan Blum, director of Education at the San Francisco-based Holocaust Center of Northern California.

For both Jews and non-Jews around the Bay Area, Kristallnacht also serves as a day for Holocaust remembrance and respectful observation.

Literally translated to "crystal night," the name refers to the profuse amounts of broken glass — mostly from the windows of Jewish shops and synagogues — as the first major wave of anti-Semitic violence broke out across Nazi Germany.

Each year, the HCNC hosts a commemorative Kristallnacht event centering around a certain aspect of the Holocaust. This year, on Nov. 9, a panel discussion will be hosted on Jewish immigration to Shanghai following the first massive wave of anti-Semitic violence,

"I believe education and creating awareness of the genocides in the past is the best form of prevention," Blum said. "Kristallnacht commemorative events serve as a great opportunity to educate our community on an important breaking point in history."

As well as offering a memorial discussion for Kristallnacht, the HCNC also sponsors the Manovill Holocaust History Fellowship, a program for teens interested in an in-depth study of the Holocaust and the events surrounding it.

In recent years, with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and others increasing their Holocaust-denial rhetoric, there has been a growing cause for concern within Jewish and academic communities regarding international respect for the genocide as fact.

Justine Yan, a non-Jewish teen from Fremont who participated in last year's fellowship, noted the importance of people everywhere remembering the crimes of Hitler's regime.

"While studying at the Holocaust Center, I never told myself that the people whose lives I was delving into were very different from me," she said. "So when I was learning about the Holocaust, I was learning about humanity."

Although the days and nights of Nov. 8 and 9, 1938, were filled with riots, beatings, murders and the deportation of 30,000 Jews to concentration camps, Yan sees an important relation between those affected by Kristallnacht and her own life.

"When I was learning about Kristallnacht, the only thing going through my mind was, 'What would I be thinking if I had lived then? What would be the magnitude of my pain and sorrow?'" she said.

The Nov. 9 panel event is from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Holocaust Center of Northern California in San Francisco. Applications for the Manovill Holocaust History Fellowship are being accepted by the HCNC until Nov. 12. More information can be found at www.hcnc.org.

The Life in Perspective board is made up of teens who write feature stories and columns for TimeOut. Andrew David King is a senior at Moreau Catholic High School in Hayward. Reach him at lip@bayeareanewsgroup.com.