Why did the Nazis treatment of the Jews change from 1939 to 1945? In what ways did the Nazis try to eliminate all Jews in Europe in the years from 1941 onwards?

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Why did the Nazis treatment of the Jews change from 1939 – 1945?

Germany invaded Poland and the second world war began. Germany had previously had less trouble with Jews because they only took up 1% of the population in Germany, but now that they were in control of Polish Jews, they had to find a new solution. War gave way to many opportunities for the Nazi party which had not been fully accessible previously.

The designing of ghettos followed shortly after Germanys invasion of Poland on 1st September 1939. But this was only a temporary solution. One idea had been to move all Jews to Madagascar, but this plan had to be changed when it became obvious that the war against Britain would continue into 1941. Germany was very flexible with its policies towards Jews depending on the occupied country. There were different policies to dealing with Jews in different occupied countries. By June 1940, Germany had successfully invaded France. However, French Jews were treated much better than the Polish Jews which had all been forced into overcrowded ghettos the year before. The reason for the change in policy was because Britain and the USA had more connection to France and would be watching it more closely with more spies in major areas. The Nazis wanted to hide their war crimes from Britain and the USA so as to keep the massacres of Jews continuing in the East.

The Nazis didn’t only hide the truth from foreign countries, but also from the German people. Aryans often either had extreme Anti-Semitic views or felt indifferent to the Jews and simply did not care where the Jews were going or what was happening to them. Without the knowing any gory details, it was easy of the average person to just turn away and ignore what was happening. This was party due to the Nazi propaganda which flooded the lives of all Germans. Germans were told that they were superior and that Jews were “like an evil virus” which bleeds honest Germans of their money. Children were brought up surrounded by the Nazis ideas that it had become more acceptable to persecute Jews, particularly once the war got started.

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Many Christians had hated Jews for many generations because they blamed the Jews for the death of their Lord, Jesus Christ. Hitler knew how to stir up these racist ideas and his diary, Mein Kampf, added to the ideas which were already circulating about Jews. He said that Germany was the greatest country and it had only lost the First World War because it had been betrayed from inside by non-Aryans. One of the main reasons why the Nazis were able to step up their campaign against the Jews once the ear had started, was because people were very ...

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