Persecution of Jews in Europe During World War 2

At the end of WWI in 1918, Germany’s economy was in ruins. There were very few jobs, and bitterness began to take over the country. According to the text, “Hitler, a rising politician, offered Germany a scapegoat: Jewish people. Hitler said that Jewish people were to blame for Germany’s problems. He believed that Jews did not deserve to live.” (7) This was the birth of Antisemitism--prejudice against Jewish people. Europe’s Jewish people have always been persecuted due to their “different customs and beliefs that many viewed with suspicion.”(7) Hitler simply reignited the flames, and a violent hatred was born.

To begin, the laws denounced German Jews as citizens. “According to the Reich Citizenship Law and many clarifying decrees on its implentation, only people of German or

The Jews were considered to be less than. “The Aryan race was the best and strongest race. Jews were another inferior race. In fact so inferior that they were not considered to be people by the Nazis.” (Anne Frank Stichting) Another source, written by Michael W. Kramer, reads “According to Nazis, the Jews were engaged in a conspiracy for world domination. Behind the scenes it was them who controlled society and made Germans suffer.” For Instance, the Germans thought that the Jews had killed Christ and were responsible for large unfortunate events in Germany. These accusations had always been floating around, and the Nazi Party had only increased Jewish hate, however, Jewish antisemitism and their use as scapegoats had always been around. For example, during the Black Death, the Jews were blamed for poisoned the wells and being immune to the Black Death; unfortunately, the scapegoating of Jews continued, changing people's ideas about the religion of Judaism. In the analysis, Jews were blamed for several tragic events for Germany, changing the way people viewed

In 1938 the Nazis banned Jews from almost everywhere.The Nazis persecuted the Jews by banning them from public places and making them lose jobs. “The Nazis continued to segregate Jews from German society, banning them from public schools,universities, theaters, sports events, and “Aryan” zones”. Then Jews had to have a J stamped on their passports. The Nazis also destroyed Jewish places and killed close to 100 Jews.

2000 years of anti- Jewish teachings in Christianity made the acceptance of racial anti- Semitism possible. In 1935, the Nazis established laws which stripped Jews of German citizenship and took away their livelihood. From 1939, the Germans began deporting Jews to overcrowded ghettos and concentration camps. Over 6 years during the war, 6million Jews, including 1.5million children were murdered by Nazis. Hitler’s deliberate annihilation of the Jews resulted in the extermination of one third of the total Jewish population or two-thirds of the Jews in Europe. The Nazi Party used terror and propaganda to persuade people to believe Hitler had all the answers to all their

The Holocaust was an extermination of Jews. Adolf Hitler, a powerful dictator, tried to wipe out the entire Jewish population with his Nazis. He sent the Jews to his concentration camps, where they were starved, beaten, and shot. The rest worked, and some even managed to survive. When Hitler killed himself, the war came closer to an end, and the remaining Jews were saved. The Holocaust was truly a horrific event, and changed the course of history forever.

The awareness of the human condition led Europe to believe in the basic equality of human rights and human equality for all individuals, which as a result Jews were granted civil rights. Throughout Germany, Jews were granted their full civil rights in 1871 after the German states turning into one single nation. As they were granted full citizenship, Jews were allowed to take up various occupations that were previously denied to them. Through the improvement of their social and economic skills, the Jews had the ability to become storekeepers, lawyers, doctors and teachers. Many Jews who were left in the Ghettos became a part of the German’s middle class because of their citizenship. Many Jews fought as German soldiers in the Franco-Prussian War and in World War 1.

Many groups of people were persecuted during the events of World War II. Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and homosexuals were some of the many victims of cruel and unfair oppression. With no intentions to heil to the Nazis and their ruler, these groups, including numerous others, were imprisoned in concentration camps and punished for their religions, beliefs, and ways of life. Some fell victim to merciless Nazi persecution, while others were murdered almost instantaneously. Many died as prisoners of harsh concentration camps. Upon entering these camps, captives were stripped of their identity and forced into a life of brutal confinement. Jews and gypsies were the main targets of Nazi oppression, but other groups, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and homosexuals, still died in concentration camps from sicknesses and abusive treatment.

Another group that was persecuted in large numbers was the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Nazi Germany targeted Jehovah’s Witnesses because they wouldn’t swear loyalty to the Nazi government. In the beginning of the war, they weren’t persecuted, by they decided to go deliberately against the Nazi government. Jehovah’s Witnesses did this by actively pursuing their missionary works and refusing to serve in the military as it went against their religion (“Search Results”). Gypsies were also persecuted because Hitler feared that minority groups would rise up against larger groups like the Aryans, and essentially take over the world (“Search Results”).

By 1933, the Jewish population in Germany was around 525,000 people which was only one percent of the total German population. During the years to follow, Nazis established an “Aryanization” of Germany. Non- Aryans (non- Germans) were dismissed from civil service, Jewish- owned businesses were liquidated, and Jewish layers and doctors were stripped of their clients. Later in 1935, the Nuremberg Laws were enacted by the Nazi government. The Nuremberg Laws were composed of two new racial laws, the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law to Protect German Blood and Honor. The Nuremberg Laws restricted Jews, it declared that anyone who had three or four Jewish grandparents would be deemed as a Jew, and anyone with two Jewish grandparents would be deemed a Mischlinge (half-breed). The Nuremberg Laws led to Jews becoming targets of wide-spread discrimination and persecution. These laws stripped Jews of their German citizenship and outlawed marriage and sexual intercourse between Jews and non-Jews. They also prohibited Jews from obtaining certain jobs (such as jobs in the government, medical field, and in law). They prohibited Jews from certain entertainment and recreational activities (such as parks, beaches, theaters, sporting events). Under the Nuremberg Laws Jews were also prohibited

Many religious conflicts are built from bigotry; however, only few will forever have an imprint on the world’s history. While some may leave a smear on the world’s past, some – like the homicide of Semitic people – may leave a scar. The Holocaust, closely tied to World War II, was a devastating and systematic persecution of millions of Jews by the Nazi regime and allies. Hitler, an anti-Semitic leader of the Nazis, believed that the Jewish race made the Aryan race impure. The Nazis did all in their power to annihilate the followers of Judaism, while the Jews attempted to rebel, rioted against the government, and united as one. Furthermore, the genocide had many social science factors that caused the opposition between the Jews and Nazis.

To best understand the Nuremberg laws is it best to see it in two parts; the first part being that any citizen not of the Aryan race was stripped of their German citizenship. This first happened with the Jews but would also affect more groups later. The Nuremberg laws made it so that only kindred blood Germans were citizens and that Jews were only guest in the country (Hill, p67). The second part of the Nuremberg laws is the outlaw of marriage or sexual relations between Jews and Aryans. The first part of the Nuremberg law was the most crucial in the persecution of Jews in Germany. The Nuremberg laws allowed anti-Semitic actions to happen because non-citizens, Jews, could legally be subjected to the actions of the Nazi party (pg 75). The nuremberg

In the 1930's the Wall Street crash occurred and the Jews having an image of being well educated and very wealthy and selfish due to all their large important businesses they ran in Germany. Hitler portrayed an image of the Jews to the Germans as though the reason why some Germans are out of jobs is because the Jews have stolen their jobs and are invading Germany being 'parasites' and taking what belongs to 'pure' hardworking German people. Therefore when the economic situation in Germany was very low and the German economy was suffering from the depression, the Jews were blamed for having all the German money and for Germans being very poor and starving during the time of the depression in the 1930's. Despite the fact the Jewish people were not particularly communist at all, due to Hitler being anti- communist, this was another act of using them as scapegoats. Anti - Semitism had been current in Europe for centuries, even since the days of 'Christ'.

The Nuremberg Laws, created September 15, 1935, were rooted in the idea of Nazi eugenics; to biologically “improve” the population into achieving the Master race that Hitler envisioned. These laws would ensure that any mixing of German and Jewish blood would cease and

The Holocaust is most well-known for the organized and inhumane extermination of more than six million Jews. The death total of the Jews is this most staggering; however, other groups such as Gypsies, Poles, Russians, political groups, Jehovah’s witnesses, and homosexuals were targeted as well (Holocaust Encyclopedia: Introduction to the Holocaust). The initial idea of persecuting select groups of people began with Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. In January 1930, Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany after winning over its people with powerful and moving speeches. From this point forward, it was a goal for both Hitler and his Nazi Party to rid the world of deemed “inferior” groups of people (Holocaust Encyclopedia: Timeline