How one person views almost caused a race to become completely erased. On September 15, 1935, Hitler introduced and the Nazi government passed the Nuremberg Laws during World War II, which discriminated against people of Jewish descent. The Nuremberg Laws consisted of the, Reich Citizenship Law, Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, and Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. The laws stated that if you had more than three Jewish grandparents you were identified as a Jew. These laws were not meant to be good for the Jews that lived in Germany, but were meant to strip the Jews of their citizenship. Hitler wanted to eliminate any Jewish customs from the German culture. The Jewish community was not aware of how the Nuremberg Laws would affect their rights. These laws were very important, because they are stepping stones for what was to come for the Jewish people living in Germany. What caused the laws to come about? How did these laws restrict Jews. What does these laws really mean? What were the long term effects on the Jewish culture? Ultimately, the Nuremberg laws shaped World War II and …show more content…
the Jews by removing them from German society. In addition, The Nuremberg laws consisted of many little laws that had different meanings and different rules in which the Jews had to follow. The first law was the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor. This law said that Jews were not allowed to marry or have a relationship with any German. It was also considered a criminal offense for a German to marry a Jew. Jews were confused about this law, because many converted to Christianity and thought these laws did not apply to them. The law also said that Jews could not hold a position in a German office. This restricted anybody of Jewish descent to ever have any position of power. Furthermore, the law also forbid Jews to employ female German maids under the age of 45. These laws prevented any close relationship betweens Jews and Germans. The reason was to eliminate all Jewish people from German culture. “Nuremberg Laws helped Hitler take the first step toward getting rid of “these parasites and imposing racial conformity on society” (Jewish Virtual Library). Another Law that was passed was the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. This law restricted Jewish students from attending German schools and universities. The Germans prohibited Jewish doctors from treating non-Jewish patients. In addition, lawyers were not allowed to practice law. Dr. Gerhard Wagner a Relich doctor spoke,“ These laws are unfair they discriminate us from the Germans” (Wagner). This forced may Jewish professionals to lose their job. This law also restricted Jewish civilians from joining the army. Jewish actors were not allowed to perform on the stage as well. This was another way of wiping out Jewish culture. This made the Jewish people feel hopeless and became more depressed. Another law was the Reich Citizenship law which showed how Jewish a person was.
Jews were forced to wear a gold star on their clothing so they can be identified as a Jew. They also had a red “J” on their licenses. This was a way for Germans to identify who was Jewish or not. Jews were being discriminated against because of their race, not for their beliefs or religion. Even Jews who felt German were punished. The caused may Jews to be scared and felt that Hitler was becoming too powerful for them to overcome. However, many Jews were vocal about how they were unfairly being treated. Elie Wiesel quoted, “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented” (Quotes about
Holocaust). Although the Jews had to go through so much pain and suffering, they finally had enough. Some of the Jewish people started to retaliate to get their point across, because they wanted to be treated like the other German people. During this time, many Jewish businesses boycotted. Furthermore, many riots broke out between Jewish people and German Nazis. For example, after a Jewish teenager killed a German soldier, the Germans retaliated and burned over 250 synagogues and 7,000 Jewish businesses were robbed (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ). In addition, schools, hospitals and homes were broken into, this was known as the Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). Many Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps. The jews that survived the holocaust have a long lasting experience on these laws. These laws were the stepping stones to start World War II. Many of the jews had a hard time following these laws and many were sent away to concentration camps. These laws were very important because if the Germans would have never made these law World War II would had never had that spark to happen. 6 million Germans were affected by these laws and were later killed for that. Lots of the Jews liked the laws because they thought that it would create order but they didn't know what was coming there way. These law persuaded other countries to join German forces and take on the Nuremberg laws to their own country.
of the famous stories was of St. Louis. St. Louis was a ship full of
“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” said by the enlightened Dalai Lama. The Jews, innocent and sympathetic, were treated like trash during Kristallnacht. The Night of Broken Glass was one of the most terrifying and brutal nights of German history, in addition Kristallnacht was an excuse for the Nazi party to eradicate the Jews and other minor ethnic groups. The Secret Police and the Waffen SS could determine if people were Jewish or not if they had certain attributes such as having blonde hair, having light blue eyes, and having a rectangular shaped forehead. Over hundreds were injured and a copious amount had died during Kristallnacht, in addition Jews were not only affected in Germany but also in “territories forcibly seized by Germany, Austria and Sudentland” (Kristallnacht: Overview). Kristallnacht, a doomsday for Jews, inducing in destruction of Jewish property, death of Jews, and social isolation.
She described in her memoir witnessing the changes in her town that came along with the new Nazi policies, including several examples of Jewish definition and expropriation, which played a vital role in her experience of the Holocaust. Very early on, following the invasion of the Nazis, the Jews were made to publicly identify themselves by not only having JEW stamped on their ration cards according to Weissmann Klein, but also wearing a prominent yellow Star of David with the bold lettering JEW on their clothing at all times (Weissmann Klein, 36). During this time the Jewish only received half the rations of non-Jews. Shortly following the required identifiers, several other regulations were put into place further denying Jews civil rights. The first of these instances experienced by Weissmann Klein being her family’s forced relinquishing of personal belongings and then the removal from their home into their basement. As in many other instances that Weissmann Klein had observed, a former family maid took was permitted by the SS to take up residence in the main house. The Weissmann family lived in that state of poverty and unknowing for several years, until the morning of April 19, 1942, when “all Jews were ordered to prepare to move to the shabby remote quarter of town…” (Weissmann Klein, 72), which further separated the Jewish
In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, it talks about the holocaust and what it was like being in it. The Germans were trying to make the German race the supreme race. To do this they were going to kill off everyone that wasn’t a German. If you were Jewish or something other than German, you would have been sent to a concentration camp and segregated by men and women. If you weren’t strong enough you were sent to the crematory to be cremated. If you were strong enough you were sent to work at a labor camp. With all the warnings the Jewish people had numerous chances to run from the Germans, but most ignored the warnings.
To understand the Holocaust you need to understand six words, definition, expropriation, einsatzgruppen, concentration, deportation, and death camps. The Germans define the Jews biologically based on religion of their grandparents. When the regime came to power in January 1933 part of the Nazi movement wanted to out rid or Jews overnight, what they did was they began to legislate against the Jews and rapidly the Jews were kick out not only in civil service but also in education, universities, teachers lawyers and doctors. The Jews became something that was not needed. The climax of this early period of legislation was the Nuremberg laws. The laws were there to determine officially citizenship in Germany, however the only definition that were given who is a citizen were definition for who was not a citizen and the only people define as not citizen of Germany were the Jews. In other time in history Jews could convert, they could hide themselves by assimilating within the host country. However under racial theory during the Nazi period Jews were Jews because of the blood that was coursing thought their veins. So the ultimate theory was that if you wanted to get rids of Jews that you couldn’t do it through conversion or any other way then to murder them.
On January 30, 1933, Hitler rose to power, during his time of power Jews had been dehumanized, reduced to little more than “things” by the Nazis. Many examples of how they had been dehumanized are shown in the novel, Night by Elie Wiesel. For example, the Jews were stripped of their identity, they were abused, and they treated each other with a lack of dignity and voice. To begin with, Jews were stripped of their identity when “every Jew had to wear the yellow star”(Wiesel 11). They were forced to wear the yellow badge in order to be identified as a Jew.
From 1933 onwards, Adolf Hitler and his Nazis began implementing simple discrimination laws against the Jews and others who they did not see part of their master race. Hitler and the Nazis believed that German power was being taken by the Jews. Hitler was able to convince his followers of this issue with the Jewish question as it was known, and get away with murdering millions of people in an attempt to cleanse society of anyone inferior to the master race. The Holocaust lasted for 12 years, until 1945. Starting as early as 1944, the Allies were finally advancing on the Germans and began taking over their camps. These liberations and takeovers by the Soviets, American’s and other allies slowly began to remove Hitler from power. In my essay I will go into detail on the final years of the holocaust and how it ended.(1)
The Holocaust not only affected the areas where it took place, it affected the entire world. Even though Jewish people were the main victims in the Holocaust, it also left lasting effects on other groups of people. Both the Nazi and Jewish decedents still feel the aftermath of one of the most horrific counts of genocide that the world has ever encountered. The cries of the victims in concentration camps still ring around the globe today, and they are not easily ignored. Although the Holocaust took place during World War Two, the effects that it had on the world are still prominent today.
In that time period the Germans and the Allied Forces were in war. When they were in war the Germans took all Jews (except the ones in hiding) to multiple concentration camps and death camps. When they were sent to concentration camps, they were ordered to take off all their jewelry, gold teeth and clothes. They were provided with stripped pajamas with numbers on them so they can be recognized by their number and not by their names. They were also tattooed on their left forearm with the same number that was on their stripped pajamas.
The Jewish people were targeted, hunted, tortured, and killed, just for being Jewish, Hitler came to office on January 20, 1933; he believed that the German race had superiority over the Jews in Germany. The Jewish peoples’ lives were destroyed; they were treated inhumanly for the next 12 years, “Between 1933 and 1945, more than 11 million men, women, and children were murdered in the Holocaust. Approximately six million of these were Jews” (Levy). Hitler blamed a lot of the problems on the Jewish people, being a great orator Hitler got the support from Germany, killing off millions of Jews and other people, the German people thought it was the right thing to do. “To the anti-Semitic Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, Jews were an inferior race, an alien threat to German racial purity and community” (History.com Staff).
Causes & Effects of the Holocaust There are times in history when desperate people, plagued by desperate situations, blindly give evil men power. These men, once given power, have only their own evil agendas to carry out. The Holocaust was the result of one such man's agenda. In short, simplicity, sheer terror, brutality, inhumanity, injustice, irresponsibility, immorality, stupidity, hatred, and pure evil are but a few words to describe the Holocaust. A holocaust is defined as a disaster that results in the tremendous loss of human life.
The Nazi Party, controlled by Adolf Hitler, ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945. In 1933, Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany and the Nazi government began to take over. Hitler became a very influential speaker and attracted new members to his party by blaming Jews for Germany’s problems and developed a concept of a “master race.” The Nazis believed that Germans were “racially superior” and that the Jewish people were a threat to the German racial community and also targeted other groups because of their “perceived racial inferiority” such as Gypsies, disabled persons, Polish people and Russians as well as many others. In 1938, Jewish people were banned from public places in Germany and many were sent to concentration camps where they were either murdered or forced to work.
Starting with creating a Law to strip Jewish immigrants from Poland of their German citizenship. Then moving on to pass a law allowing for forced sterilization of those found by a Hereditary Health Court to have genetic defects. They also prohibit Jews from owning land, also from being newspaper editors. Jewish people are also banned from the German labor front and stripped of national health insurance. The Jews where also prohibited from receiving legal qualifications. The Nazis ban Jewish people from serving in the military. Hitler was trying to form his version of a perfect race by not only stripping Jews of their rights but also Gypsies, the mentally ill, homosexuals, and Jehovah’s witnesses. The name for the plan of the mass extermination was called “the final solution”. The Jews where sentenced to death there was really no escape for them. Some people where very lucky, some people of Jewish ancestry were sometimes able to escape being sent to the Nazi death camps if their grandparents had converted to Christianity before the date of January 18, of 1871. This date marked the start of Germanys unification and the start of the German empire. After the beginning of World War II, N...
During the dictatorship of Hitler, Jews, along with many other minorities, faced legal discrimination before losing their rights all together, and eventually being forced into death camps. Many Germans participated in this discrimination due to fear of the Nazi rule as well as indoctrination. Nazi propaganda encouraged the Anti-Semitism fueling the violence. This began with the passing of the Nuremberg Laws, which defined who was Jewish. Those deemed “non-Aryan” were prohibited from having citizenship, participating in public service and soon from participating in civic life. The genocide began with the isolation of the Jewish into Ghettos riddled with starvation and disease. Designed to decimate its population, the Warsaw Ghetto alone had a death toll of 13,000, excluding those who were transferred to death camps. In the novel, Antonina refered to the genocide of the holocaust as the “greatest crime the world has ever known, because it is not on the scale of History: it is on the scale of Evolution” (Ackerman
One of many regulations was the book banning of 1933, where Nazi teachers, librarians and student organizations made up lengthy lists of books not acceptable to be read by Germans, because they opposed Nazi beliefs. Books whose ideas the Nazis viewed as different from their own were listed to be burned and banned from the country. The book banning in Germany was extremely limiting, not only to Jewish people but to the entire country. This forced the country to only read approved novels, but become more compliant with Hitler’s language. Likewise, Hitler also used his language to impose a new law of forcing Jewish people wear a yellow colored star to signify their inferiority to the Germans. The Germans forced the Jewish people to wear a badge in the form of the yellow Star of David to harass and isolate the Jews. The symbol of the yellow star, inscribed with the word “Jude”, was proof of the Nazi tyranny. This single piece of fabric was enough to form a separation between the Jewish population and German, physically limiting them to isolation. Without the support of Germany, Hitler’s language would have not been as physically and mentally limiting as it