Do Now

• What is the message of hate on this sign?

• Have you ever seen these in your life

• What is the intent of purpose?

• How would you feel if you came home and saw a message of hate towards your family based on your religion or culture?

What is Anti-Semitism?

• Anti-Semitism is prejudice and/or discrimination against Jews. Anti-Semitism can be based on hatred against Jews because of their religious beliefs, their group membership (ethnicity) and sometimes on the erroneous belief that Jews are a race. Jews are, in fact, of all different races.

• Have you ever seen any incidents of Anti-Semitism in your life?

The Initial Assault• On April 1, 1933 the Nazis launched a

national boycott of Jewish businesses. Troops were stationed in front of the shops to enforce the boycott and the police were ordered not to interfere.

• Many people placed signs and painted Stars of David on the windows of each store.

• This was Hitler’s response Gruelpropagnada (Atrocity Stories) spread by German and foreign Jews to discredit the Nazis

• Hitler was quoted as saying; “Perhaps they (American Jews) will think better of the matter when their racial comrades in Germany begin to get it in the neck.”

Why do you think the sign on the store window is also printed in English?

What lesson was Hitler teaching the German people?

• Reaction to the boycott was mixed. Some cities saw eruptions of violence against Jews, while in other areas Germans honorably and defiantly entered Jewish shops.

• Some Jews “saw the light” and fled the country, but most remained optimistic and stayed. Many believed the Nazi Regime to be temporary, others could not imagine Germany, a first world industrialized nation, would seriously harm any of its citizens.

• The boycott officially lasted for 1 day and was mostly ignored

• On April 7, 1933 the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service was passed. All Jewish government workers, lawyers, journalists, and teachers were fired. All Jewish doctors could no longer have German patients.

Did you know? Albert Einstein was one of the few German Jews who fled after Hitler took power in 1933.

Question: What effect would firing Jewish public professionals have on German society?

“Our people crucified their Christ on the cross, and we do a great business on his birthday.”

How are these Jewish men physically portrayed?

“Buy from the Jews, betray your people.”

“Sucked Dry”“The Beginning and the End”

The Poisonous Mushroom

• Children’s Book Published by Julius Streicher in 1938

• Der Giftpliz for “the toadstool” or “poison mushroom)

• Text by Ernst Hiemer

• Illustrated by Philipp Rupprecht

How to tell a Jew

What is a Talmud

The experience of Hans and Else with a strange man

Inge’s Visit to a Jewish Doctor

The Nuremberg Laws• In 1935 Hitler decided it was time to

move to the next stage in his plan to eliminate Jews from society. The Nazis passed the “Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor” and the “Reich Citizenship Law”. Collectively they were known as the Nuremburg Laws designed to strip Jews of their rights.

• The Nuremberg Laws also defined exactly who was Jewish and who was not. The chart on the following page shows how they thought of every possible genetic scenario.

• Despite everything that Hitler did most German Jews believed that time would pass, and things would get better. Their hopes were destroyed when the largest attack on a Jewish community since the Middle Ages took place in November 1938, called “Kristallnacht”, or The Night of Broken Glass.

Above and Left: Herschel Grynszpan.

Right: Ernst Von Rath

Take a look at the following pictures and decide what you believe is happening.

Above: Firefighters prevent homes next to a Synagogue from catching fire, letting the Jewish house of worship burn.

Right: Germans watch a synagogue burn without interfering.

Left: Germans watch the furnishing and Torahs of the local synagogue burn.

Right: Hundreds of Jewish men are marched off to a concentration camp.

The destruction of Jewish businesses and synagogues after Kristallnacht.

Jewish Emigration after Kristallnacht• The entire Jewish community in

Germany now knew it was time to leave the country.

• Many nations, including the US, prevented them from seeking refuge. Nazi law prevented the Jews from taking anything of value and most countries.

– Great Depression – Anti-Semitism

• The international community held a conference in Evian, France to discuss Jewish emigration. It ended in failure as no industrialized nation wanted to accept the refugees.

The SS St. Louis carried hundreds of Jewish refugees out of Germany. Unable to find any nation that would accept them, the boat had to come back to Germany. ¼ of its passengers later died in the Holocaust.

Fact: When Canada was asked how many Jewish refugees they would take, its minister responded, “None is too many.”