How Jews were Discriminated Against in Germany from 1933-1939

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 .

Immediately after the Reichstag elections on 5 March 1933, which marked the real beginning to Hitler’s and the Nazis’ takeover of Germany, “Nazi organisations began to unleash their anger against the Jews. Jews were molested, some even killed, and Jewish businesses were harassed or destroyed,” (Holocaust A Call To Conscience). The first anti-Semitic initiative was the boycott of Jewish stores in April 1933. This was followed by a wave of anti-Semitic laws and decrees. More than 2,000 racist laws and decrees were issued between 1933 and 1945.

Jews undergoing the selection process on the Birkenau arrival platform known as the " ramp"

How and why did the Nazi treatment of Jews change between the years 1933 and 1945?

On April 1, 1933, the Nazis announced a boycott of all Jewish businesses. This was the first of many actions taken to slowly exclude Jews from public life. Later, on September 15, 1935, the Nuremberg Laws were issues. These laws were solely made to exclude Jews from German citizenship and limit their rights. The laws forbid marriages between Jews and German nationals as well as relationships between the two. Jews were not allowed to employ German females in their households and forbidden to hoist the Reich and national flag or to present the colors of such. The punishments for breaking any of the laws were either hard labor, imprisonment or fines. Over the next few years, other anti-Jew laws were issued such as laws excluding them from parks, firing them from government jobs, laws to register their property and a law which permitted Jewish doctors to only work with Jewish patients. Children were also banned from many public places.

This essay is going to discuss the ways in which the Nazi’s persecuted the Jews between the years of 1933 to 1938. Through the rise of Nazism, Nazi beliefs and propaganda, Nuremberg laws and the Kristallnacht in which will be explained in detail, I will provide a knowledge based analysis of pre-war life and the initial lead up to the war.

Hate crime is a prejudice-motivated crime in which a person is verbally or physically attacked solely based on their race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability or other prejudice. These hate crimes are often involved with violence and can be identified as threats, vandalism, assaults, and hate propaganda. One notable hate crime is the Holocaust which was the Nazi’s persecution of the Jewish people - where Jewish people were targeted which led to at least 6 million deaths of the Jewish community. After WW2, laws were created to prevent an event like Holocaust from ever happening again. Even with these laws the number of hate crimes are actually increasing however, majority of the world are now ready to stand together against all

All throughout time, the Jewish people went through a lot. Judaism has fought through many challenges that have threatened its existence. One of the most iconic events for Judaism in history was the Holocaust. Although most of the events of the Holocaust are known to the world, there are still questions about the topic and much to learn. Some questions about the Judaism during the Holocaust are ‘In what ways were the Jewish people discriminated against during the Holocaust?’, ‘How did the Jewish people react to the Nazi force invasions?’, and ‘What happened to the Jewish people and religion after the Holocaust?’.

Imagine that you are a Jew, one of the hundreds of thousands of oppressed peoples living in Nazi Germany during the rise and plateau of Adolf Hitler’s regime and conquest for world domination. The year is 1940, and the only way to escape anti-Semitic persecution is to emigrate to one of the Allied states—you and your family’s only hope might have been Ellis Island, New York, United States of America. It might have been, but to your incredible dismay and misfortune, a set quota for Jewish immigrants has already been filled. Despite the stories of hate crimes and genocide, nearly 70% of Americans opposed easing and enabling Jewish immigration. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had promised that America would fight for a world in which the individual has four essential freedoms: the freedom of speech and expression, the freedom of every person to worship God in his or her own way, the freedom

“All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach,” Adolf Hitler (The National World War Museum). The German Nazi dictator utilized his power over the people using propaganda, eventually creating a sense of hatred towards Jews. After World War 1, the punishments of the League of Nations caused Germany to suffer. The Nazi party came to blame the Jews in order to have a nation-wide “scapegoat”. This hatred and prejudice towards Jews is known as anti-semitism. According to the Breman Museum, “the Nazi Party was one of the first political movements to take full advantage of mass communications technologies: radio, recorded sound, film, and the printed

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.

The Jewish community has been going through oppression and discrimination for some time now. They went through it in the 40’s and are continuing to go through it in the 20th century. They say it’s America, which is a free country. Why are Jews excluded from this freedom? Why do people continue to discriminate against them? Are we bringing back the Hitler mentality? They’ve done nothing wrong, yet they still continue to go through this deep oppression.

The Holocaust was a major event that caused many people to feel sorrow, it was a spark of murder and other types of discrimination of Jews, and anyone who stood in front of Adolf Hitler’s version of a perfect world. During World War two, major country leaders were out for dominance. The word ‘holocaust’ means destruction or slaughter on a mass scale, and a jewish sacrificial offering that is burned completely. That is exactly what happened during the years of 1933-1949.

camps it was time to kill as many as they could in on final swoop.

Before the nineteenth century anti-Semitism was largely religious, based on the belief that the Jews were responsible for Jesus' crucifixion. It was expressed later in the Middle Ages by persecutions and expulsions, economic restrictions and personal restrictions. After Jewish emancipation during the enlightenment, or later, religious anti-Semitism was slowly replaced in the nineteenth century by racial prejudice, stemming from the idea of Jews as a distinct race. In Germany theories of Aryan racial superiority and charges of Jewish domination in the economy and politics in addition with other anti-Jewish propaganda led to the rise of anti-Semitism. This growth in anti-Semitic belief led to Adolf Hitler's rise to power and eventual