Jews were persecuted in many ways. Persecution is bullying and picking on someone because they’re different. One way in which Jews were persecuted against was in 1933 when there was an official one day boycott of Jewish shops, lawyers and doctors all over Germany. This meant that there were Nazi guards standing outside all Jewish business to discourage entry and to stop Jews making money. Five years later in 1938 Jewish doctors, dentists and lawyers were forbidden to treat Aryans; this meant that many Jews lost their jobs because they were only allowed to treat Jews so there were less people they needed to treat.
Civil rights mean the natural rights of a citizen or individual in country constitution. Jews had most of their civil rights removed during the period 1933 to1939. Some examples of civil rights that were taken away from the Jews by Hitler are that Jews could not inherit land. This meant that if any land due to be inherited by a Jew it would not be given to them but it would have been given to the German government instead. Another example of a civil right taken from the Jews was that Jews weren’t allowed to be married or have sexual intercourse with a German. Hitler was especially determined to prevent Aryans from marrying and breeding with non Aryans because he didn’t want the master Aryan race getting “polluted”.
The Jews were also persecuted against when the Nuremburg laws were introduced in 1935. Some of these laws included Jews not having the right to vote, they could not fill any public office and a Jew was not allowed to be a citizen of the third Reich. The Nuremburg laws were discriminatory laws which meant they were aimed specifically at Jews.
In Germany Jewish children’s school books were red so they would stand out and would be easily discriminated by German children and teachers. Teachers in Germany were made to go to training camps to make sure they knew exactly what to teach. Teachers had to teach only things that would put across Nazi ideas and they could not teach anything that supported Jews but only things that embarrassed or insulted the Jewish children in front of the class. For instance maths questions were asked purposely to reflect Nazi ideas even though some of the text was not needed to answer the question. Lots of questions like this were used deliberately to discomfort the Jewish children. Nazis persecuted and discriminated the Jews by making Jewish children look bad and by humiliating them in front of their classes.
Jews were isolated in many ways such as being banned from all public parks, restaurants, swimming baths and museums. Jews were considered second class to Germans. Jewish people were part of a minority group that Nazis persecuted them because they were different. In Germany Jews were also discriminated against by the Nazis in newspapers by propaganda that deliberately spread lies about Jews to make them look bad and to show Germany exactly how the Nazis wanted the Jews to come across.
In 1938, on a night which came to be known as Crystal Night, the Jewish shops and synagogues were attacked and destroyed all over Germany. It was called Crystal Night because of all the broken glass on the pavements the next morning. This shows that the Nazis actions were getting more and more extreme because of what started off as just one day boycotts of Jewish shops, lawyers and doctors later escalated into Jewish homes, synagogues and shops being destroyed. Nazis decided to use violence towards Jews as a sort of “punishment” because they were different to Hitler’s idea of the perfect race. In the same year Jews were made to wear yellow Star of David badges, they could run shops, they could not choose their children’s names and they were forced to live in set areas called ghettos. The Nazis made the Jews wear the Star of David badges because they wanted Jews to be easily recognised by the Germans so they could furthermore be discriminated against.
