Jewish Life in Pre-War Nazi Germany

Though the Holocaust was definitively the most atrocious undertaking in Nazi
Germany. Jewish people were poorly treated by the german public and
government before the Second World War even began.
The Nazi party from the go was an anti-semitic one.
Their core beliefs involved keeping the Aryan blood pure. They believed that
their master race was tainted by those such as Jews, gypsies, black people
and even the disabled. This led to the systematic oppression of these
minorities in Nazi Germany that we know of today. Propaganda was created
depicting Jews as monsters representing how the Nazis thought of them as
threats to the German people. Jews were regularly persecuted and
humiliated. Many members of the German public were were not willing to
disagree with the Nazis on their racial policies. This is likely due to fear of
punishment from the party if one were to speak out against them.
By 1933, there were about 500,000 Jews in Germany. This
is actually less than one percent of the German population at the time. Jews
were actually classified as having at least three Jewish grandparents.
Consequently, the Nazis classified thousands of converters, including even
priests nuns, and Protestant ministers whose grandparents were Jewish
though they most definitely were not. Jewish people were also blamed for the
poor economic state of Germany after the treaty of Versailles left the country
looking for a scapegoat.
The Jewish business owners were some of
the first affected when a boycott was led by the SA and SS on the first of
April, 1933. During this boycott, their buildings were vandalised with
markings such as the sign of David and the German word for Jew Jude. This
boycott was only the beginning for German Jews and by no means the worst
of it yet. Local boycotts for individual towns became somewhat
commonplace throughout most of the 1930s

The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 are the knife turn in the

Jewish flesh. They become second-class citizens by law and have most of
their rights taken away. No longer are they able to vote or even able to be in
a relationship with the Aryan race. A star of david on their chest becomes
mandatory in order to easily identify them from crowds of Germans. This only
makes humiliation for the Jews more prevelent in the e to their party and
their leader. This night would go on to be known as Kristallnacht.
German society than before.
The poor treatment of Jews before World War II
culminated in a night of rage fueled by the Nazi party after the death of a
German diplomat at the hands of a Jew. Jewish shops are broken into, even
homes and synagogues are attacked in the night. Some of the public even
joined in the anti-semitic violence out of allegiance to the party.
Soon more drastic measures became commonplace. Aryan
doctors were prohibited from treating non-Aryan patients. As Jews were
unable to become doctors at this time, health care was at an all time low for
them.. German Jewish passports were issued with a large J on them and
could be used to leave, but not to return. Later that same year, Jews with
first names of non-Jewish origin had to add Israel or Sarah to their names.
Jewish children were banned from public schools. By April 1939, almost all
Jewish companies had disappeared due to the anti-semitism resulting in a
lack of business. In certain cases the business owners were even forced to
sell their businesses to the Nazi party. This further reduced Jews' rights as
human beings to the point where around 60 percent of the Jews who were
living in Germany in 1933 had emigrated before the Second World War.