Part Three
Anti-Semitism
By David Cromwell
© 1999 David Cromwell
Chapter One: Why Did The Germans in the 1920's and 1930's Hate The Jews?
Chapter Two: Treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany
Chapter
Three: Three Important Quotes
The worst enemy the Jews ever had was probably Adolf Hitler, but he was not alone. Many others in Germany and Austria disliked Jews. The purpose of this part is to give a look at the life and treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany.
Just something to extend your knowledge, the word "Anti-Semitism" was invented in 1879 by a German racist called Wilhelm Marr (1818-1904).
Why Did The Germans in the 1920's and 1930's Hate The Jews?
"The sun will not shine again for the people of the earth until the last Jew has died." Julius Streicher, editor of Der Sturmer, the paper which was closed down during the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
Historical evidence shows that throughout history the Jews have always been discriminated against. For example they were blamed for the Black Death; They were blamed for killing Christ; Even the Romans looked upon the Jews with suspicion. So Anti-Semitism wasn't new, all Hitler did was to just tap into it and exploit it.
Hitler's own
prejudice also caused the hatred of the Jews. Hitler told the
Germans that they (Germans) were superior to the Jews and they (Jews)
should be treated as inferior.
"[The Jew] is and remains a parasite, a sponger." Hitler.
The Germans used the Jews as scapegoats, blaming them for their (Germany’s) failure to win World War I. They were also blamed for Germany's poverty and unemployment, and Germany's economic depression.
Many Germans hated the Jews out of jealousy. This was because Jews were rich and skilled business people. Many owned shops and had taken many of the professional jobs (Doctors and dentists), and the Germans didn't like it.
The Jews were hated because they were different in their customs, ritual, the outward signs of their religion (their prayer shawls) and their synagogues. They were easy targets for discrimination because they were different.
Hitler had a lot of influence over the Germans and they feared him and his Nazi party, and some followed their hatred for the Jews out of this fear.
Children were taught
to hate the Jews from an early age. Textbooks, cartoons, films
and board games were full a Anti-Semitic themes and topic (propaganda).
For example the following is an extract from a poem in a Nazi
school book:
"From the Jew's countenance the evil devil talks to us,
The devil, who in every land is known as evil plague,
If we are to be free from the Jew and to be glad and happy again,
Then youth must join our struggle to overcome the Jew devil... " Der Giftpilz: The Poisonous Mushroom, 1938
The Germans felt threatened by the number of Jews and accused them for bringing the Blacks into Germany to bastardise the German race by making an inferior race of half-casts, therefore they felt threatened that a mixed race would form.
Hitler told the Germans that the Jews were plotting with Germany's enemies to defeat and overtake Germany. This made the Germans hate the Jews thinking they were spies and traitors.
Beside the Jews,
Hitler also hated communists. So he told the Germans that the
Jews were all communists, because Germans hated and feared the
communists they then started to hate the Jews. This let Hitler
"kill two birds with one stone".
"Gentlemen, the Jews are indeed beasts of prey the Jews are cholera germs." From a debate in the Reichstag, 1895.
The Treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany
The Germans taunted the Jews by calling them names and ridiculing them.
The Property of the Jews was attacked - shops, synagogues and personal property. The Jews themselves were attacked as were there pets.
Jewish shops were boycotted, therefore their businesses collapsed and when they lost their jobs they soon couldn't afford there homes, they were then forced to live in the ghettos.
Jewish children were bullied at school. Jewish teachers and students were expelled from schools so that "discipline and order can now be taught properly."
Most of the Jewish books were burnt.
1934 Hitler and the Nazi party had come to power and had total control over Germany. By 1935 they had started to set Anti-Semitic laws.
In September 1935 a set of laws was introduced. There official name was the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour . They stated that:
"Marriages between Jews and citizens of German blood are forbidden. Any marriages concluded abroad are void.
Jews will not be permitted to employ female German citizens as domestic servants.
Jews are forbidden to display the national flag or national colours."
In November 1935 another law was introduced. In it it stated that:
"A Jew cannot be a citizen of the Reich. They have no right to vote in political affairs and he cannot occupy public office".
In 1936 another law stated that:
"From January 1st, 1939, the running of retail shops, mail order houses and the practice of independent trades are forbidden to Jews.
Jews are forbidden from the same date to offer goods or services in markets of all kinds, fairs or exhibitions or to advertise or accept orders for them.
Jewish shops that violate this order will be closed by police."
Then in 1938 an order of the Police President of Berlin placed restrictions on the Jews in that city. Below are some of them:
"All cinemas, museums, the Reich Sports Field and all sport places including ice skating rinks.
All public and private bathing establishments, indoor as well as open air baths."
Jews were also forbidden to go into certain of the more important streets.
By 1938 it became clear that the Jews weren't wanted in Germany and were being forced to leave. But when the Jews made to leave the letter "J" was stamped on their passports. When they finally boarded the ships and had set off for countries like Britain and America. On arriving at their destination the Jews found that they were unable to stay and were sent back - by the governments of the individual countries - to Germany.
When back on German soil the Jews when into hiding, living in the forests. But many of the hiding Jews were captured and taken - with those who hadn't managed to escape - to the camps, which at this time were labour camps and prison camps.
On November 7th, 1938, Herschel Grynzpan, a Polish Jew who lived in Paris, murdered a German Official (in Paris). When news of this reached Germany, it gave the Nazis an excuse for a pogrom . During the night of November 9th so many windows were broken that it became known as "Kristallnacht", or "Night of Broken Glass".
During the Kristalnacht thousands of windows were smashed in Jewish property, 200 synagogues were destroyed, and thirty-five Jews were killed in the attacks. About 20,000 Jews were arrested for "resisting the forces".
As Nazis invaded other European countries the Jews of these countries were badly treated. Below are examples of what they were forced to do:
In Vienna, Austria Jews were forced to scrub Schuschnigg signs off the side walks. They were forced to clean Germans toilets and cars.
The Jewish Judges were immediately fired, and Jews were forced of their jobs.
The elderly Jews
were forced out of nursing homes and made to stand on the street
with nowhere to go.
In Warsaw, Poland
all Jews were force to live in the ghettos. There mass starvation
haunted the ghetto. Many of the Jews simply starved to death
under the Nazi regime.
In Amsterdam, Netherlands Jews when into hiding but were betrayed and arrested. Then they were removed and sent to deaths camps to die. One of the people sent to the death camp at Bergen-Belsen was Anne Frank, here she died at the age of 15. Her secret diary, published after the war, brought the treatment of the Jews sharply into focus for millions around the world. Below is an extract:
"Jews must wear a yellow star, Jews are banned from trams and are forbidden to drive Jews must be indoors by eight o'clock and cannot even sit in their own gardens after that hour." Extract from "The Diary of Anne Frank (Saturday, 20th June 1942).
5. The Final Solution
From 1943 the Jews started to get sent to death camps. The following are a few examples of them:
When the Jews arrived at the camps, by train, the families were split up (One group for useful people - men and women, teenagers) (One group for the useless people - old people, children, pregnant women).
After separation the Jews were made to work.
In some camps the Jews were starved - one example is Bergen-Belsen.
Jews were tortured by various means. Women were raped. Jews were whipped, beaten or had stones thrown at them.
Jewish twins, the disabled and others were used for medical experiments. An example of this is that Jews with brown eyes had substances injected into their eyes to see if the Germans could change the colour to blue.
The Jews were murdered by various means. At first they were shot, starved, worked to death, hung or burnt alive (they were only unconscious when the Germans put then into the incinerators). But soon the Germans had found an easier way to depose of the Jews, it was the Gas Chambers.
By the end of the war the official death toll for the Jews was 6,000,000, although the unofficial death toll estimates that the amount is higher - probably twice as much.
Not only the Jews were targeted by the Germans. The Slavs, Gypsies, homosexuals, the retarded, handicapped, insane, Jehovah’s Witnesses and some Catholics were also victims of Hitler's "Final Solution".
The Germans had taken care to destroy as much as they could of the camps as they retreated, but the evidence of the plies of human ashes and bodies, warehouses full of shoes, jewellery, spectacles and human hair was too much to hide.
Three Important Quotes
Here are three more quotes to add to those already used above.
"Jews are liars and bloodhounds."
"We are at fault in not slaying the Jews. Set fire to their synagogues and schools and bury or cover with dirt whatever will not burn."
"Our final objective however must be the total removal of all Jews from our midst."
© 1999 David Cromwell