discrimination, persecution, violence ---> emigration

500, 000 Jews, integrated urban middle-class=1% of total
After WWI: economic depression, radical nationalism, violence, communism fear, dissatisfaction with democracy
---> antisemitic attitudes; hostility.
Goebbels: propaganda essence of National Socialism; conditioning & indoctrination in media; Seig Heil, flags, fanfares, ritual rallies - create mass fervor, nazify Germany.
Streichter’s Der Sturmer: antisemitic newspaper; 1934 motto: Jews are our misfortune; blood libel --> demonization of Jews
Aim of Nazi policy: make areas free of Jews= Judenrei

The ‘War against the Jews’ = Racism & Terror Policy
Legal economic, social degradation, exclusion -isolation

I. Define group II. Destroy his economy III. Ostracize

Thou shalt not live as one of us

#Constant public humiliation & legal depersonalization

Apr 1 ‘33. Boycott Jewish businesses; Goebbels, SA, SS

Six-pointed star, Judaism symbol: Star of David identify

3 stages in effective legislation to shut Jews out of society:

A. 1935 - Exclusion from professional & cultural life
April 7th ‘33. 1st anti-Jewish law, firing all non-Aryans civil service workers. Thousands of Jews forcibly ‘retired’
May 10 Goebbels: burning un-German ‘banned’ books
Aug. 2 34 Hitler head of state, fuehrer = dictator
Adolf Eichmann: at end of ‘34 is Nazi ‘expert’ on Jews
B. Nuremberg Laws: Sept 15 ‘35, 2 laws on ‘citizenship, blood & honor’ - defined Jews in racial terms=alien; 1. stripped them of their citizenship;
2. outlawed marriage Jews & Aryans; + more regulations
denial of justice; racial antisemitism, govt official policy

1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, moderated anti-Jewish
attacks; removal of some signs saying "Jews Unwelcome"

C. 1938-39 Jews under direct authority of SS, Gestapo

Turning point; more oppression; Jewish assets registration

# After 1938 - Expropriation. Aryanization

Aryanization: ownership of most Jewish businesses taken
over by non-Jewish Germans - compulsory expropriation

Yellow star: Jews, forced to wear it, easier to identify
I.D. of male Jew name: Israel; Sara for female ---> identify

Jews cut off from non-Jewish neighbors=no empathy

# Forced emigration - Nazi goal

Nazi policy removed Jews from political & cultural life; overall goal of forced emigration seemed to be working;
desperate & impoverished 150,000 German Jews left:
40% of emigrants chose British-controlled Palestine

Choicelessness = refugee problem
Unwillingness of other nations to accept Jews, because of
a) traditional antisemitism
b) economic depression, unemployment
c) quota in the US by regulation of sept. 8. 1930
Chaim Weizmann: countries divided into places: 1. where they cannot live -those that wanted to get rid of Jews, 2. where they cannot enter -that refused to take them in
Congress had set up immigration quota -limited number-
in 1924 that limited number of immigrants/ undesirables

Evian Conference July 6-15, ‘38: Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated international conference of 32 governments to
address the German refugee problem; neutral, Evian=naive
Goebbels: Nobody wants the scum!
Oct. 5, ‘J’ - Jude designation on Jews’ passports:
this was motivated by a request by Swiss

# Internment

Kristallnacht: Night of Broken Glass, Nov 9 ‘38; turning point for state-condoned terrorism; pogrom; 191 synagogues on fire; antisemitic riots; Jews beaten, killed;
30,000 Jews to concentration camp; curfew

Refugee crisis: emigration to Palestine, America, Shanghai
Wagner-Rogers bill to admit 20,000 Jewish refugee
children, not supported by the Senate in 1939 and 1940
St Louis ship, May 13 ‘39: 937 passengers, most Jewish
refugees, left Hamburg; turned away from Cuba & Miami
May 17 ‘39: White Paper on Palestine barring Jews from Palestine, published by British government - 75,000
immigrants to be permitted to enter; more by Arab consent
Nazi logical conclusion: no one cares about Jews.
Mass ordinary Germans/world indifferent to Jews’ fate
1/2 German Jews, 2/3 Austrian Jews fled Nazi persecution
1939 German census: lists race; helped Eichman to create Jewish registry on Jews, also in Austria, Sudetenland