The Anti-Jewish Policies Of The Holocaust

The Nuremburg laws also removed the status of Jews as a 'bearer of full political rights ', they were also no longer allowed to hold public office.2 There was a multitude oflegislation passed between 1933 and 1938 such as the Law for the Reestablishment of the Professional Civil Service and the Law on the Admission to the Legal Profession that persecuted Jews. Roger Draper argues that 'Jews were the principal targets of large-scale Nazi violence against civilians from the start ', events such as the 'Night of the Broken Glass ' in which Jewish business were vandalized and many Jewish shopkeepers were harmed are evidence ofthis.3 Historian Lucy Dawidowicz argues that Hitler 's premeditation can be traced back to his writings in Mein Kampf that 'openly espoused his program of annihilation ', he argued that if 12000-15000 Jews had been gassed in the First World War then the sacrifice of millions wouldn 't have been in vein.4 Hitler 's meeting with the heads of the Armed Services in 193 7 is also used as an indicator of premeditation as Hitler stressed their duty 'to make secure and preserve the racial community ' hence protection from the Jewish population and he declared that the achievement of autocracy was only possible 'under the strict National Socialist leadership of the State '.5 Hitler 's 'prophecy speech ' in 1939 is also used as fuel by the

The Holocaust is widely considered to be one of the darkest times in history- an abominable genocide with casualties measured in millions. With infamy comes inquiry, leading many to question and examine the exact motives behind the Nazi regime that killed masses. There are various factors to be considered when pinpointing the root causes of the Holocaust, among these being the historical and cultural hatred of Jews, the growing German unrest following WWI, and the Nazi Party’s ability to effectively utilize propaganda as to spread their doctrine. Despite this, anti-semitic ideas and propaganda spread before and during WWII were decidedly some of the most influential causes of the Holocaust.

After Hitler comes into power, the laws of Jewish persecution become more often, stricter, and more deadly. The next law that passed was that of the Nuremberg Laws these laws stated that none of the Jews in Germany were allowed to marry Aryans or fly the German flag (The Holocaust Background info center). 1935 ended with another law against the Jews being passed, as did the start of 1936.

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.

In the tumultuous period leading up to World War II, a series of laws were devised in Nazi Germany that subjected the Jewish people to prohibitory and discriminatory forms of treatment. Although the Jewish people only accounted for 503,000 of the 55 million occupants of the country, Adolf Hitler’s dictatorship preached the incorporation of anti-Semitism into law and practice in order to quell the people he considered to be the enemy of the country.

Horror struck on January 30, 1933, when Germany assigned Adolf Hitler as their chancellor. Once Hitler had finally reached power he set out to complete one goal, create a Greater Germany free from the Jews (“The reasons for the Holocaust,” 2009). This tragedy is known today as, “The Holocaust,” that explains the terrors of our histories past. The face of the Holocaust, master of death, and leader of Germany; Adolf Hitler the most deceitful, powerful, well spoken, and intelligent person that acted as the key to this mass murder. According to a research study at the University of South Florida, nearly eleven million people were targeted and killed. This disaster is a genocide that was meant to ethnically cleanse Germany of the Jews. Although Jewish people were the main target they were not the only ones targeted; gypsies, African Americans, homosexuals, socialists, political enemies, communists, and the mentally disabled were killed (Simpson, 2012, p. 113). The word to describe this hatred for Jewish people is known as antisemitism. It was brought about when German philosophers denounced that “Jewish spirit is alien to Germandom” (“Antisemitism”) which states that a Jew is non-German. Many people notice the horrible things the Germans did, but most don’t truly understand why the Holocaust occurred. To truly understand the Holocaust, you must first know the Nazis motivations. Their motivations fell into two categories including cultural explanations that focused on ideology and

Most of us have heard of the Nazi party’s horrific, genocidal regime on destroying the Jewish race, but what events led up to their dire judgement? In this study I aim to uncover the events, reasons and changes which led to the Holocaust and the further changes in the treatment of the Jewish race by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party.

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 .

Hitler took advantage of the situation and rose to power in 1933 on a promise to destroy the treaty of Versailles that stripped Germany of land. Hitler organized the Gestapo as the only executive branch and secret terror organization of the nazi police system. In 1935, he made the Nuremberg laws that forbid Germans to marry or commerce with them. Hitler thought that the Jews were nationless parasite and were directly related to the treaty of Versailles. When Hitler began his move to conquer Europe, he promised that no Jewish person would live.

During World War II, the Jews were the primary victims of Germany’s most atrocious act, the Holocaust, where thousands of Jews were senselessly slaughtered in the name of Nazism. Countless innocent Jews perished in concentration camps, while the majority of the Nazis watched and did nothing. To them, the Jews were not human beings, but rather mere animals, who deserved concentration camps. This reasoning baffled the Allied countries, as they understood that regardless of race and religion, no one should be subjected to concentration camps. Yet, the Nazis completely disregarded and violated the basic rights of humankind. The Nazis successfully propagated this anti-Semitic mentality because ordinary Germans were consumed by their ignorance

"It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people an the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed."-Elie Weisel. Imagine you wake up one morning and everyone around you was being beaten, killed, put in jail, all because they are Jewish, Gypsies, Handicapped, Slavic people, Homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and many others. So many people suffered during the holocaust, and it all started when the Anti-Semitism Nazi leader Adolf Hitler decided that they were an "Inferior race" and a threat to German racial purity and community. It effects today by giving us remembrance of the sinister things that happened during Hitler's reign of power.

September 15, 1935 was the beginning of the end for many Jewish people and their families. This day was when Nazi leaders put the Nuremburg Laws into action. There were six Nuremburg Laws that began anti-Semitism, revoked citizenships, and receded the rights of many underserving people. The laws applied to Jews, Gypsies and blacks. Jews were anyone that had three or more Jewish grandparents or anyone that had practiced Judaism (Nuremburg Laws). The Nuremburg Laws were a set of laws that took away the rights of Jews and began the harsh treatment of Jews during the Holocaust.

At the foundation of Nazi ideology is a strict adherence to the racial purification of the ‘Aryan race.’ Nazi propagandists and racial fanatics created ways to limit the rights of people who were deemed racially inferior; the majority of such policies focused on solving the ‘Jewish Problem.’ In an effort to increase pressures on the Jewish population of Europe, the Nazi regime imposed laws and edicts to remove any legal rights of Jewish citizens. In order to purify the German race, the Nazi regime went a step further and implemented legislation to separate the Jewish and Aryan populations; a separation of these groups would provide a quicker way to racial purification. In the mid-1930s, laws, like the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour, were enacted to inhibit marriage and sexual relations between people of Jewish and Aryan descent. This particular law focuses on the purification of German blood, the Jewish-German marriage policy and the display of Reich symbols. Looking at its historical context, however, we see that this law is only a small piece of the Nazi policies focused on the persecution of Jews.

“Being a Jew or a German is a part of the blood” (Feldman,), this is a statement from the Nuremberg Laws, which was consigned to the Jews in September of 1935 ("United States Holocaust Memorial Museum."). The Nuremberg Laws consisted of five discriminating guidelines such as: 1. “The “Reich Citizenship” (it stated that only a person of “German or related blood” could be a citizen, have political rights, or could hold office), 2. the “Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor” (this made it illegal for Jews and non-Jews to get married or engaged in sexual relations together), 3. Jews were not allowed to have non-Jewish female servants under forty-five years old, 4. Jews were forbidden to fly the German flag, 5. (being a Jew is a part of a person’s blood) (Feldman,)”. Jews were not able to eat, shop, or even use the restroom in certain places. Children that went to school were taught anti-Semitic lessons, and the Jewish children were taunted and chaffed, not by peers’ alone, but teachers as well. This dreadful method compelled children to refuse attending school ("United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.").

2). Even though this was not a violent treatment of the Jews, it was an attempt to bankrupt and dehumanize them of everything they had worked for their whole lives (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). As a result, Jews became a segregated people. They had to ride on buses and trains only in the seat that were clearly marked for them (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). Jewish children were allowed to be bullied at school in an attempt to keep them from coming to school. Hitler used this to brand the Jews as a lazy people (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). The Nuremberg Laws passed in 1935 gave even more power to the Nazis and took away more dignity of the Jews. The Jews were stripped of their German citizenship and marriages between Jews and non-Jews were not allowed (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). At this point, the Jews who could afford to pay a fine to leave the country were allowed to do so, but the ones who could not afford it had to stay behind and were not allowed to get food or medicine (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). Hitler’s campaign against the Jews escalated in 1938 with “Krystalnacht” – The Night of the Broken Glass (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). After a Nazi diplomat was found shot to death, Hitler began a seven day war of terror against the Jews (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). Shops that were owned by Jews were destroyed and robbed, homes and synagogues burned