Anti Semitism And The Holocaust

One event that encouraged Anti-Semitism and increased tensions leading up to Kristallnacht and beyond was the announcement of the Nuremberg Laws in September of 1935. This set of laws created by the Nazi party made sharp distinctions between the rights and privileges of Germans and Jews (Sigward 291). This redefined citizenship in the Third Reich and laid the groundwork for a racial state. For example, the Reich of Citizenship Law stripped Jews of their citizenship, claiming they didn’t have “German blood” (Sigward 291). Those of Jewish descent were denied the right to vote and the ability to obtain a valid passport or visa to leave the country. This law completely dehumanized Jews living in Germany and made them stateless, which caused those of the Aryan race or pure German descent to feel superior. In the Nuremburg Laws, Article 5 of the First Regulation to the Reich Citizenship Law defined a Jew as a descendant of three or more Jewish grandparents or two Jewish parents (Sigward 293). These laws lead to the Jews being persecuted for who they were, rather than the faith they believed during previous years. As a result of these laws being carried out, German nationalism and Anti-Semitism across the Reich increased drastically .

Through out history there’s a ground breaking event that forces society to reform its beliefs. The Holocaust was one of these events, refugees were persecuted in a number of ways and society had a choice to help, become isolated, or to confirm any persecution as ok or right. In every choice our society has depicted that there's a right and a wrong decision to everything; it was wrong for U.S legislation to not give their best efforts to help refugees of the Holocaust it lead to future prejudices and the suffering of millions.

The Jews traveling on the St. Louis were tricked by the U.S. into thinking they were citizens of the United States. Since, they had to be sent away on boats to Antwerp, Belgium to internment camps. Though, one-quarter of them died when they went to the Holocaust. U.S. prejudice against the Jewish people. Although, the U.S. took a lot of Jews

Antisemitism is to blame for the lack of concern among non-Jews during the up rise of the Holocaust.

The holocaust was a time of pure darkness. The German Nazi’s thought their race would be better off without Jews and so they decided to kill them off. The Nazi’s were a group who was under Adolf Hitler’s control and had the power to kill Jews. The Nazi’s were basically Hitler’s soldiers. Adolf Hitler was the current Chancellor of Germany during that time. The Nazi’s however did not only target Jews which accounted for nine million of Europe’s population alone, but also homosexual’s, Jehovah’s witnesses, Gypsies, disabled individuals, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, communists and socialists. The holocaust plays a role in the start of World War II. During the war, the Nazi’s managed to wipe out hundreds of Jewish communities and ended up killing around six million people total. They used to make Jews wear a badge on their clothes when going anywhere to show everyone they were Jewish. It used to be a law for Jews to wear such garments up until the nineteenth century and if they failed to do so, there was severe punishment. This is how Nazi’s chose whom to persecute.

During the Holocaust there was a lack of aid from America to those suffering in Europe. President at the time of the Holocaust, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had been leading a country of antisemitism, meaning to be against the Jewish. As mention in The Us and the Holocaust Project Group: Antisemitism page by Lauren Freeman, Antisemitism was habited with in Congress, and the general public of the United States; which will be further elaborated later in the paper.

There were nearly 100,000 Displaced Jews after the Holocaust. More than 75% of them never found any more family members. At the end of World War II there were millions of people in Europe- as much as a tenth of the population of the continent- who had been driven out of their house by the Nazi's. (Dibelius) “On May 14, 1948, the United States and the Soviet Union recognized the state of Israel. Congress also passed the Displaced Persons Act in 1948, authorizing 200,000 DPs to enter the United States.” The law's rules and demands made it adverse at first to the Jewish DPs, but Congress edited the bill with the Displaced Persons Act of 1950 (Displaced Persons). “By 1952, over 80,000 Jewish DPs had immigrated to the United States under the terms of the DP Act and with the aid of Jewish agencies.” Even with all the laws that were passed allowing populations to immigrate, it still wasn’t enough. Nearly none of Europe tolerated these people, because of what they were led to believe. The United States was probably the most tolerant, because they the least influenced by Hitler's

Unlike other countries though, the United States did not experience the terror of bombing or occupation (Grolier, pg. 1). The United States were not attacked by the Germans or Japanese until the bombing of Pearl Harbor. This was the main time that we finally realised that we needed to get involved with this war, for our safety, and the victims under German control. Before that, we found the whole ordeal unimportant and the persecution wasn’t a priority. To limit the number of Jewish immigrants in the U.S., Congress passed new law on immigration in

The US response to the Holocaust was a very mixed one. On one side, the American public was misinformed about the brutalities of the Holocaust. On the other side, several government people were sympathetic towards the Jews. A few major polls were given to the American public during the Holocaust. In one of these polls, around 42 percent of Americans thought that the Germans violated the Jews due to their unfavorable characteristics. This, obviously untrue, statement shows how misinformed the American public was during the Holocaust about the harshness and laws such as the Nuremberg Laws. Another poll was given and the results showed that only 4 percent of the Americans knew that over 5 million Jews had been killed. (Response to the Holocaust

Ultimately, however, it was only after the bombing of Pearl Harbor that America declared war on Axis, months after Nazi Germany banned Jewish emigration. An unnecessarily large number—six million Jews were allowed to become victims of genocide. While the Roosevelt and Truman administrations domestically masked World War II as the “Good War,” the righteous struggle for worldwide freedom, the reality of the United States’ involvement was far from idealistic, due to its alliance with communist powers, its acquiring of foreign lands, and its cruel treatment of the

Almost anybody can agree that the Holocaust was one of the worst and most despicable acts in human history. If the Holocaust was somehow repeated, most people would want to try to do everything they could to help those who are affected. Most would also assume that Americans would have had this same attitude when the Holocaust occurred. However, this is a false assumption. There is no doubt that Americans helped correct the Holocaust. However, certain factors were preventing them from being able to do more. As a result of the government, the economy, and fear, the United States of America was unable to effectively safeguard the Jews from the atrocities of the Holocaust.

Currently America honors those murdered by the Nazis with museums, monuments, and even a remembrance day. However during the Holocaust, under the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, America was reluctant to save the Jews from Europe. Six million Jews were systematically murdered through mass shootings, gas chambers, and in death marches. We might expect that as a model democracy, America would have made a great effort to rescue these Jews but that was sadly not what occurred. Due to America’s tradition of isolationism and a singular focus on achieving military victory, Roosevelt's attention to Jewish refugees in Europe during World War II can most accurately be characterized as a mix of missed opportunities and limited achievements.

Desmond Tutu once said, “if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” The United States of America knew about the atrocities being committed in World War II, and still did nothing. America is complicit in the deaths of all those we turned away. When the St. Louis brought us Germany’s huddled masses yearning to breathe free, we turned away, dooming so many souls on that ship. But why? Are we not a nation created by immigrants fleeing persecution? The cold, hard truth of the matter is that the United States let six million people die because of institutionalized anti-semitism, which impacted the economic crisis and isolationist policy within the government.

The Jewish children whose lives were taken from them, speak through this poem. During World War II, The Holocaust occurred in Germany from 1942 to 1945. The Holocaust consisted of “systematic segregation, persecution, and murder of Jews, Romani, communists, homosexuals, soviet prisoners of war, people with disabilities and other groups deemed to be enemies of the National Socialist Party and German people”. (Phillip Smith) Barbara Sonek, the poet who wrote “Holocaust”, gives voice to the children who died during this time. Holocaust tells us the story of how the children were in a good place before The Holocaust to being persecuted to their deaths. They had dreams to become someone important in the future, but that was ripped from them when they were taken by the Nazis. They were then treated like animals and either starved to death, asphyxiated to death or worked to death. This poem not only serves as a reminder of the atrocities that occurred during that time to feel sympathy towards those who suffered, but rather helps us prevent history from repeating itself. Racism exists no matter the race or tone of skin, this poem reminds us the history of The Holocaust and prevent another genocide from happening.

The rise of anti semitism in Nazi Germany was an atrocious attack on the rights of Jews under the concept of racial superiority and blame for the war. Many Jews attempted to emigrate from Germany to the United States establishing communities in cities such as