Ben Greenbank 11A 08/05/2007
Why did the status and position of Jews in Germany worsen in the Years 1933 to 1945?
In 1933 Adolf Hitler, leader of the violently anti-Semitic Nazi party, became the Führer of Germany. He then set about removing the Jews, whom he believed to be inferior to Germans, from every aspect of German life.
The situation initially worsened because the Jews were harassed by the Nazis. The boycott of Jewish shops (April 1933) and the book burning of books by Jewish authors (1933) made the Jews feel they were not wanted. Professional people such as doctors were removed from there jobs. By 1935, life was intolerable for German Jews and they were under constant threat of abuse, terror and isolation. In September 1935 the status and position of Jews in Germany took a drastic turn for the worst. This is because the Nuremburg laws were passed. This stripped Jewish people of all their rights as German citizens. The Nuremburg laws also forced Jewish men to add "Israel" to their first names and forced women to add "Sara" to their first names. This was done to make the Jewish people seem different and put them apart from the rest. Another of the Nuremburg laws was that if a Jewish woman had sex with a German man, she would be sent to a concentration camp. By doing this, the Nazis were treating Jews as animals and thus giving them no status or rights. They felt not only humiliated but isolated from society.
