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In the night from 9 to 10 November 1938, members of SA, SS, NSDAP, HJ and other Nazi organizations committed pogroms against Jews throughout the entire Greater German Reich. Synagogues were set on fire, about 7,000 Jewish retail stores and apartments were devastated. Furthermore, Jewish cemeteries were desecrated and Jews were maltreated in the streets. An unnown number of Jews were deported to various concentration camps such as Dachau.

In Hof, the worst acts of pogrom violence began at around 5 o’clock. Shortly after the keys for the assembly rooms in the synagogue building in Hallstraße were handed over to a man in civilian clothes, one could hear a beating and banging on the ground floor. The synagogue building itself was not set on fire, as in many other large cities, but all the furniture, chairs, armchairs, pews, boards, window crosses, prayer books and Torah rolls were carried outside by the perpetrators. They were piled up on a heap on Hall Square and later burnt down at the „Saaledurchstich“ (place in Hof . The attack was carried out by members of the SA and SS. Also present were the mayors of Schwarzenbach and Hof. The synagogue building was torn down 15 December 1938.

The Jewish citizens were dragged out of their apartments that night and arrested and then taken to the regional court prison (today Klostertor 2-4). Today this building houses the nursing home run by the Diakonie (a charity organisation). After the detention of Jewish inhabitants of Hof, Jews from other places in the region were also arrested. 18 prisoners were released during the next few days. In the period that followed more men from Bayreuth, Kulmbach, Coburg and the Lichtenfels area were transferred to Hof. 17 November 1938, 54 prisoners were to be transported by train to the Dachau concentration camp. Due to the fact that this camp was overcrowded, the transport ended in Regensburg, where they were taken to the prison in Augustenstraße. After five days they were returned to Hof and released in the soon after.