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Jewish Life In Germany

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The Changing of Jewish Life
With the rise of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party between 1933 and 1939, Jewish life was changed drastically. This was due to a combination of factors such as Hitler’s rise to power and anti-semitic beliefs, Nuremberg Laws, and Kristallnacht. This essay will serve to explore Jewish life prior to 1933 and explain the many factors that attributed to the changing of Jewish life from 1933 to 1939.

Anti-semitism has existed for about two thousand years throughout Europe, but despite this, the life of German Jews was reasonably peaceful before 1933 (Berenbaum 2018). Anti-semitism existed in many forms such as the Jews being scapegoated for the cause of the Black Plague and the death of Christ, as well as employment …show more content…
Hitler’s rise to power began at the end of World War I, with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. Germany agreed to abide by four main terms of the treaty including war guilt, reparations, military restrictions and loss of land and resources. Social unrest broke out within Germany and with all of this happening at the same time as the start of the Great Depression, Germany was vulnerable. Hitler saw this as a window of opportunity to gain the trust of German citizens, promising to restore Germany’s former prestige, as well as convenient scapegoats for all of Germany’s current problems; scapegoats fueled by Hitler’s anti-semitic views (Gendler & Hazard 2016). One of Hitler’s main beliefs was that Humans belonged to a hierarchy composed and ranked accordingly to race, in which the Aryan race sat the top, with Jews on the bottom. Once Hitler had come into power as Chancellor of Germany in 1933, he along with his Nazi Party took advantage of their powers, using the law, propaganda and indoctrination to pursue their anti-semitic views. From then on, life for Jews would become harder, as Germany was now under the Nazi …show more content…
Three laws were proposed by heads of the Nazi during a meeting in Nuremberg; The Reich Citizenship Law, the law concerning the German flag, and the law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour. Nevertheless, they were unanimously voted in. Jews were required to carry identification cards with a red “J” stamped on them. Furthermore, they were even given middle names for Jews who did not already possess distinct “Jewish” first names such as “Israel” and “Sara”. The Nuremberg Laws not only affected Jewish people, but Germans with three or four Jewish grandparents, regardless of religious beliefs or political views as well. This meant that many Germans who had never practiced Judaism found themselves eligible for persecution under the Nuremberg Laws (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 2018c). Later on, new terminologies had been devised for the extent of Jewish ‘blood’ possessed by an individual, determined according to their family tree. Categories of Jewish blood included “Volljude” - full jew, “Halbjude” - half jew, and “Vierteljude” - quarter Jew. These categories were put in place to define exactly who could be prosecuted for the Nuremberg Laws. Under the Nazi regime, these categories also determined who would be sentenced to execution, and who would be left to live. Not only did this change the lives of Jews, but it changed German society as a whole

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