The fourteenth of July has long been celebrated as the day on which the storming of the Bastille marked in the eyes of the French people and the world's public the opening of the French Revolution. Whatever the actual nature of that looming fortress, or the events of that stirring day, the Bastille symbolized the fetters imposed on mankind by the Old Regime. Its seizure in that attack was seen equally as a symbol of the breaking of those fetters, a liberation from royal bondage, and an affirmation of human rights. When Lafayette gave the key to the Bastille to George Washington (tourists can today view it at Mount Vernon), he did so to demonstrate in a concrete way the symbolic tie between the French and American revolutions, with both perceived as affording an opening for human rights not only in the two countries immediately affected by the two revolutions but in the whole world through the inspiration of example. There was hope that the example would find many imitators, and those who indeed saw in the American and French upheavals salutary lessons for the preferred structure of their own societies often considered July 14 their own special day. From the very beginning, the concept of human rights and equality was seen by both its supporters and its opponents as in some ways including the Jewish inhabitants of society.

In the Germany of 1933, July 14 was made the occasion for a very special set of actions by the government.