The Nazis claimed that the Jews corrupted the pure German culture with their foreign influence. They proclaimed that the Aryans were the "master race" of Germany, and anyone who was not Aryan were considered inferior. Among those, the Jews. They portrayed Jews to be evil creatures, and Germans to be hardworking, courageous, and honest people through their propaganda. The Nazis claimed that the Jews were heavily represented in finance, commerce, the press, literature, theater, and the arts, and they were weakening Germany's economy and culture. A major tool of the Nazis' propaganda against the Jews was the weekly Nazi newspaper Der Stümer. At the bottom of the front page of each article, in bold and big letters, the paper proclaimed, "The Jews are our misfortune!" Der Stürmer was constantly featuring cartoons of Jews in caricatures with hooked-nose and apelike figures. The influence of the newspaper was wide, and by 1938 about a half million copies were distributed weekly throughout Germany.
Kristallnacht, also known as "Night of Broken Glass," occurred in November 9th, 1938 in Germany. Minister Joseph Goebbels announced a government-sanctioned reprisal against the Jews. Synagogues were burned. Jewish shop windows were broken. Many Jews were beaten, raped, arrested, murdered, or sent to camps. After Kristallnacht, the Nazi regime made Jewish survival in Germany impossible. In November 1939, one year after the Kristallnacht, the Nazi government introduced mandatory ID badges for Jews. It was announced that "severe punishment is in store for Jews who do not wear the yellow badge on back and front." This policy was used to isolate Jews from the rest of the population. It enabled the Nazi government to identify the Jews of Europe.
By the end of 1939, some Jews realized that the violence would increase. Numerous jews fled away from Germany to neutral countries, however, many stayed in Germany. In the beginning, Hitler favored emigration, the Nazis even forced Jews to emigrate. The problem was that admitting Jews became a problem to a few countries due to the massive influx of Jews in their countries. Many countries closed its door for the Jews.
Hitler noticed that he could not get rid of the Jews through emigration. So, he decided to move all Jews into certain cities in Poland. In these cities, the Jews lived in overcrowded ghettos. The Nazis then sealed off the ghettos with barbed wire and stone walls. They wanted the Jews to starve and die in these ghettos by keeping them segregated from the world. However, some Jews formed resistance organizations within their ghettos, and smuggled in food as well as other needed items. Below, Henry Greenblatt is a Holocaust surviver, and he tells us a little bit about life in the ghettos:
Soon, Hitler grew impatient waiting for Jews to die. He then decided to come up with his "Final Solution" which was to a program to kill the entire population of Jews. Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, and he sent SS units to go hunt down the Jews from town to town. They rounded up the Jews together, and took them to isolated spots in order to shoot them. Jews who were in communities far away from the killing squad were sent to concentration camps. These camps were mainly located in Germany and Poland in the beginning of 1940, however, more camps were built in other countries later on. The prisoners worked seven days a week. Guards severely beat or killed them if they did not work fast enough. The ones who were too weak to work were sent to gas chambers (mainly women, young children, the elderly, and the sick.) There was lots of famine, and disease. Some of the Jews were experimented on, and many died throughout these horrifying experiments. Below there is a video that walks you through the life in one of concentration camps during World War ll:
Six million jews died in the death camps during the Holocaust. Less than four million European Jews survived from the horror. Many of those who survived had help from non-Jewish people who were against the Nazis' treatment on Jews. However, those who survived in the horror of the Holocaust, their lives have changed forever. Below, there is a video that will help you understand what happened to the Jews that survived after the Holocaust:
More Resources:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/about/
Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltwZQwsrsWo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gonvxBXAgN
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CdLw9ksQZU
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/about/
Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltwZQwsrsWo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gonvxBXAgN
I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CdLw9ksQZU