Holocaust

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Recommended: Nazi treatment of Jews

Life during World War II
The persecution of European Jews by Nazi Germany was described as a cruel act of racism led to the mass murder of the Jews. Ilse Koehn experienced all of this first hand as a little girl in Berlin, Germany. She was classified a Mischling, second degree meaning she had a jewish heritage in her family line. The holocaust was a matter of defining the issue of race but it was also mixed with nationalism and businessman getting rid of Jewish competitors. Ilse Koehn was one of the many people affected by the holocaust during World War II she writes about it in her wonderful memoir called, “Mischlings, Second Degree” it tells how the life of people in germany at the time were treated, it impacts us now today with racism and learning about it in schools.
The Nazis took their first action on April 1, 1933 against the German Jews they announced a boycott of all Jewish-run businesses (Benson 1). Lawyers, doctors, and businessmen supported the persecution of the Jews because they could take their position and take their clients to increase their wages. In the book Ilse’s father has to leave his job and his family because he has to keep the secret that he is a Jew. “There was a prohibition on marriages between Jews and citizens of “German or kindred blood” (“Holocaust”). The female children of these marriages were not allowed to be employed as domestic servants by any German. Ilse

Ennis 2
Koehn was one of these children but her parents kept it a secret and made her become a part of the Hitler youth to not raise any suspicion.
“Racism played a key role in defining the victims of Nazi persecution, and its became lethal when it was mixed with German nationalism, folk concepts of blood and soil that helped define insi...

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...oday with racism and learning about it in schools.

Works Cited
"Analysis" Masterplots II: Juvenile & Young Adult Biography Series Ed. Frank Northen Magill. Salem Press, Inc. 1993 eNotes.com 6 Mar, 2014
Benson, Sonja, Daniel E. Brannen, and Rebecca Valentine, comps. "World War II." UXL Encyclopedia of U.S. History. Vol. 8. Detroit: Gale Cengage Learning, 2009. Web.
"Holocaust." Encyclopedia of Race and Racism. Ed. John Hartwell Moore. Vol. 2. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2008. 103-112. World History in Context. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
"Ilse Koehn, 61, Dies; A Writer and Artist." The New York Times. NY Times, 16 May 1991. Web.
Koehn, Ilse. Mischling, Second Degree: My Childhood in Nazi Germany. New York: Greenwillow, 1977. Print.
"Mischling, Second Degree: My Childhood in Nazi Germany." Barnes & Noble. Penguin Group Incorporated, 28 June 1990. Web. 11 Mar. 2014

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