Holocaust why were jews targeted

Six million Jews. These are some of them. Many denominations are continuing to address the role played by centuries of Christian antisemitism in contributing to circumstances that made the Holocaust possible. Antisemitism did not end with the Holocaust and is a global problem today. Hatred of Jews based on religious, political, or racial ideologies continues among ordinary citizens, people of influence, and even under state sponsorship.

This hatred often echoes the same falsehoods used by the Nazis. Efforts to distort or deny the Holocaust are among the ways that antisemitism is currently expressed.

The history of the Holocaust shows that targeting an entire group has far-reaching consequences. It leads to an increase in xenophobia, racism, and extremism throughout society, with potentially devastating consequences for individuals, communities, and nations. It can lead to an increase in xenophobia, racism, and extremism throughout society, with potentially devastating consequences for individuals, communities, and nations. The term antisemitism was coined only in the nineteenth century, but anti-Jewish hatred and Judeophobia fear of Jews date back to ancient times.

The ceremony at the US Capitol, featuring a candle-lighting and names reading, is happening now. Join us right now to watch a live interview with a survivor, followed by a question-and-answer session. The Museum's commemoration ceremony, including remarks by the German ambassador and a Holocaust survivor, is happening now. What is Genocide? Key Videos Podcasts and Audio. Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial What is Antisemitism? Holocaust Denial and Distortion Teaching about Antisemitism.

Why the Jews: History of Antisemitism. These are some who were slaughtered in the Holocaust—a generation lost forever. The Protestant Reformation brought no end to the anti-Jewish tradition of Christianity. Even though many Jews assimilated socially and culturally, prejudice did not disappear. Antisemitism would become the predominant ideology of the Third Reich.

Learn more at ushmm. Transcript [Narrator] Between and , the Nazis killed about six million Jews and millions of other civilians throughout Europe. View Next This seven-minute film explains why this rising antisemitic violence is still a threat today. The resources on this page promote effective teaching about antisemitism and the Holocaust. This Section. Learn more about the different types of antisemitism and how to identify them. What is Antisemitism?

Help us teach about the consequences of unchecked hate and antisemitism. Give today. WeRemember Watch Now. The total number of Roma murdered by the Nazis has been roughly estimated by historians to be between , to , people. Alfred Hess had schizophrenia. The Nazis regarded people diagnosed with schizophrenia as genetically inferior.

They entrusted him to a guardian and continued to pay for his hospital fees. Alfred was deported to an unknown location by the Nazis in and killed.

No reason or explanation was offered. He was sterilised without his knowledge under Nazi Rule in Bielefeld, Germany. A photograph of Paul Eggert , whose testimony is available on the previous slide. The Nazis believed that disabled people did not, and could not, be a part of the German master race.

Ultimately, this view led to the murder of thousands of disabled people. The Nazis started their oppression of disabled people shortly after their rise to power. This law named nine disabilities and forced anyone with them to be sterilised. These disabilities ranged from severe physical deformity to epilepsy, to chronic alcoholism. The Nazis justified this law by proclaiming it would allow Germany to achieve racial purity by limiting future disabled generations.

They based this view on eugenic research. In the s, eugenics was widely believed to be a legitimate science, which was popular across the world. The Nazis also stressed the government financial savings if the amount of disabled people in Germany decreased. Following the sterilisation programme, the Nazis persecution of the disabled soon escalated. This programme was code named T-4, after the address of its headquarters Tiergartenstrasse 4.

Unlike the sterilisation law, T-4 was never formally announced as the Nazis tried to keep the programme a secret. The programme focused on disabled people living in state-run nursing homes or hospitals. Doctors and nurses in these institutions were asked to complete a questionnaire on each individual patient. The staff in the institutions were told the questionnaire was to collect statistics for the government.

The real purpose of the survey, to establish victims, was concealed. Once identified, the victims were transported on buses to one of the six killing centres: Brandenburg, Gradfeneck, Bernburg, Sonnenstein, Hartheim, Hadamar.

Initially, they were murdered via lethal injection. In , this changed to gassing by carbon monoxide gas, as a cheaper and more effective way of mass killing. Victims were cremated, and their families informed that they had died of natural causes. This procedure provided the Nazis with a blueprint that they would later refine and replicate on a mass scale in extermination camps.

Although the programme was carried out in secrecy, it became hard to conceal and soon became public knowledge. There was considerable public and private outrage over the murders.

Under pressure from public, Hitler publically ordered a halt to the programme on the 24 August The gassing centres were dismantled and shipped to the new camps in the occupied east. Many of its leadership and supporters were imprisoned and murdered by the Nazis. In order to ensure total obedience and conformity to their regime, the Nazis suppressed all of their political opponents.

Following the Reichstag Fire , Hindenburg declared a state of emergency. The Nazis used this to their advantage in the immediate period following the declaration, rounding up any political opponents and imprisoning them in concentration camps. Concentration camps were built almost immediately after the Nazi rise to power.

The primary purpose of these initially was to house political prisoners. Examples of early camps include Oranienburg and Dachau. The awful conditions in the camps forced many prisoners to starve or die of the unsanitary conditions.

Those that were released, primarily in the early period, were forbidden to speak of their experiences, and told to leave Germany immediately. On 6 May , the Nazis led the first physical attack on homosexuals following their rise to power. Students led by members of the SA attacked and looted the Institute of Sexual Research, set up by gay rights pioneer Magnus Hirschfeld in A few days following this, they burned the stolen books in the street. Their attraction to other men meant they were not producing children for the Volksgemeinschaft.

Led by Heinrich Himmler , the Nazis persecuted gay men in several ways. Initially, the Nazis closed down a large majority of the homosexual bars, and shut down any homosexual publications. They arrested gay men and tortured them, forcing them to give up their address books and names of partners in an attempt to create a register of all gay men in Germany.

On the 28 June , the Nazis revised Paragraph , a section of the German Criminal Code which banned homosexual contact. This was a crucial turning point in the radicalisation of persecution against homosexuals. Homosexuals were some of the first people, alongside political prisoners, to be sent to the concentration camps in In the camps, they were subject to ridicule and hard work. They were also forced to wear pink triangles to define them as homosexuals.

As with Roma, in the camps homosexuals were also the subject of brutal medical experimentations, such as castration. Elli is listed as being arrested as a Lesbisch — the German word for lesbian.

Often the reasons that lesbians were arrested for was also listed as political or asocial. Frieda Belinfante with her partner Henriette Bosmans in their apartment in the late s. Frieda was a Jewish cellist and conductor from Amsterdam who was openly lesbian from the age of sixteen. Following the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands, Frieda worked for the gay resistance group the CKC, arranging for false papers for those persecuted and hunted by the Nazis.

As a Jewish lesbian, Frieda Belinfante was persectuted by the Nazis. Freida actively opposed Nazi rule. In March , she was a key figure in planning of the attempted destruction of the Amsterdam Population Registry, where records of Jews and others picked out for persecution and extermination were kept.

Following this attack, and the subsequent executions of many who organised it, Frieda went into hiding. She often dressed as a boy as pictured to disguise herself from the Nazis. Frieda survived the war and emigrated to the United States.

Whilst, in comparison to other persecuted groups, lesbians were able to continue their lives in a relatively normal manner under the Nazis, their activities were oppressed and there were women who suffered under Nazi rule as a result of their sexual orientation. The Nazis did not believe that women were inherently corrupted by their sexuality in the same way that gay men were. Despite this, they did not agree with the concept or act of lesbianism. Some high-ranking Nazis, such as Hans Frank and Rudolf Klare, actively campaigned for more extreme oppression of lesbians, though they were not very successful.

Lesbians were not seen as a threat in the same way that gay men were, due to the small part that they were seen to play in public life. Under the Weimar Republic, lesbian culture had flourished, particularly in Berlin. Following the Nazi rise to power, all publications, societies, and clubs of this kind were banned as Goebbels established his Chamber of Culture.

The Nazis did not have a definitive policy to persecute lesbians. Despite this, there were some lesbians who were either denounced by neighbours or friends or caught by the Nazis in other ways.

These women were arrested and often sent to concentration camps, where they were listed as a-social or political prisoners. Due to this ambiguity surrounding the reasons why they were arrested, the approximate number of women who were taken to concentration camps due to this sexual orientation is unknown. Overall, most lesbians, if willing to conform to the Nazi ideas about women, were able to survive the Nazi period and avoid persecution. For example, some women married to avoid attention or attacks regarding their lack of children.

Despite this, lesbians were not able to live freely, and were actively subjected to the oppression of their sexuality under the Nazis. She was married and had a large family, with eleven children. In the late s, all of the family were imprisoned or incarcerated in concentration camps. Hilda, her husband and eight of her children survived. Two of her children, Wilhelm and Wolfgang, were killed at the hands of the Nazis.

This is a photograph of Luta Wagemann and her son Robert Wagemann, taken around She was released just a few days before giving birth. When Robert was four, Luta had to take him into hiding for the rest of the war. This was to avoid persecution and potential euthanasia as he was born with a shattered hip he was also considered disabled by the Nazis. Both Luta and Robert survived the war. This resistance to Hitler and the Nazis was seen as an outright violation by a German citizen, and was not accepted.

This suspicion escalated following the outbreak of war. If they refused to fight, work in war industry or show obedience to regime they were arrested and often sent to concentration camps.

Some scholars have argued that the Nazis were an expression of a particularly German form of antisemitism and was the basis of their appeal. Others have argued that Germans became antisemitic after the Nazis took power and took control of education, broadcasting and the media. Antisemitism: hatred of Jews. Jews are our misfortune. Key Term: Antisemitism: hatred of Jews.