Kristallnacht; Prelude to destruction

This is the book that I started reading today after finishing The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles. I'm already really into it, as history is a secret passion of mine :S.
I already had a brief understanding of what Kristallnacht was; I knew that it was referred to as 'the night of broken glass' because it was when Hitler went around and demolished Jewish shops and synagogues etc and stripped Jews of their qualifications and.. dignity. I knew that Hitler commenced this act upon hearing news that the German Ernst vom Rath had been shot by a Jew at the German Embassy in Paris too. However, I did not know the full story behind the shooting of vom Rath. The book explained;

'On 18th October 1938, on Hitler's orders, more than 12,000 Jews were expelled from Germany... 4,000 were accepted by Poland. But 8,000, denied entry into Poland, were forced to stay at the border... There, in harsh conditions, they waited for the Polish government to agree to take them in... One expelled couple, who had been living in Hanover for more than 27 years, had a 17 year old son, Herschel Grynszpan, living in Paris. From the border his sister Berta sent him a postcard describing their expulsion: "No one told us what was up, but we realised this was going to be the end." Her final appeal: "We haven't a penny. Could you send us something...?"... Herschel recieved his sister's short but anguished message on November 3. On the following day he read a graphic account of the deportations in a Paris Yiddish newspaper, which reported a number of instances of insanity and suicide among the expellees. Grynszpan was outraged. On the morning of Sunday, November 6 he bought a pistol, loaded it with 5 bullets, and on the following day went by Metro to the German Embassy. His plan was to kill the Ambassador. After telling the doorman that he had "an important document" to deliver, he was sent to the room of the Third Secretary, Ernst vom Rath. "Did you have an important document to give me?" vom Rath asked. Drawing his pistol, Grynszpan called out: "You are a filthy Boche and here, in the name of 12,000 persecuted Jews, is your document." Grynszpan fired 5 shots.' - Kristallnacht; Prelude to destruction, Martin Gilbert