During his life various large and tragic events were to impact the region , which can be considered as the most horrific of places during the first half of the 20th century . Among these events , ranging from a few positive to news headlines to crimes against humanity , were : the pogroms , the co-opted 1905 Russian Revolution , founding of the Folkspartei , the First World War , the February Revolution followed by the October Bolshevik , the Balfour Declaration of 1917 , the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk , the Versailles Treaty , the Polish – Soviet War , the Weimar inflation , the U.S.A. Immigration Act of 1924 , exile of Leon Trotsky by Joseph Stalin , the Soviet Gulag , the Great Depression , collectivization of the Ukraine , the Nazi regime , the Nuremberg racial laws , Stalin 's Great Purge , Kristallnacht , the 1939 White Paper , the Nazi – Soviet Pact , the Second World War , the Soviet-Nazi War , and the Shoah . The catastrophe of the genocide claimed the life of the aged historian
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Simon Dubnow