History Assessment Task 1 Study Notes

How life for Jews changed in the 1930’s:

In 1935 two new laws were passed:

 The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour. This defined a Jew as a person
with either three or four Jewish grandparents. Marriages or sex between Jews and Aryans was
forbidden so that there could be no "race defilement”
 The Reich Citizenship Law, where only a person who is "of German or related blood" can be a
German citizen. Jews were defined as a separate race, and so could not be citizens, and therefore
had no political rights.
 Jews may not employ in their households’ female subjects of the state of German or related blood
who are under 45 years old.

They were also:

 Banned from working in the Army, as Veterinarians, Tax Advisors, in government schools, as
auctioneers, as doctors for Aryans, or being a student or a lecturer at university.
 No longer allowed to change their surname and had to add either “Israel” or “Sara” to their given
names and must have a large ‘J’ stamped on their passports.
 Prohibited from owning gun stores or weapons, moving around Germany without permission, having
carrier pigeons, owning a car or a driver’s license, having a telephone or a radio banned from health
spas and resorts, forbidden from buying lottery tickets.
 Star of David// Numbers and deemed inhuman

As the years passed, Jews faced increasing discrimination for their race, not just by the system but from the
people around them. Kristallnacht- a day where non-Jewish people looted Jewish businesses and homes.
They killed 100 Jews.

Jews were exploited for slave labour. Auschwitz is often known as the place where gas chambers and mass
exterminations took place, indeed more Jews died here during the holocaust than at any other place. But its
function as a concentration camp, as with many other camps around Germany and Eastern Europe, was also
to provide slave labour for the Nazis war effort. These camps were known as Arbeitslager or forced labour
camps.

- Jews were isolated from society

o By slowly erasing jews from the community they became excluded so the death of them was
deemed not important
- 3 different camps, labour camps, concentration camps, death camps
- Ghettos being made to exclude them.
- Main camp was Auschwitz
- Would work 23 hour days and many of them died from starvation/exhaustion .
- All propaganda was influenced by the Nazis
- Malnutrition
- Would do health checks and if deemed unhealthy by the doctors they would be taken on trains to death
camps to be “sanitized” in “showers” AKA DEAD FROM GASS CHAMBERS
- Destruction of jewish faith, were not allowed to practice
- Had to carry identification cards if you were jewish