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The image below is a poster with the German caption'build youth hostels (careplace ) and homes'. The young girl holds a donation cans with flowers to tell people that they should support the Nazis.

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How did the Jews escape? By Kaitlyn Espe

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How did the Jews escape? By Kaitlyn Espe

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During the last seven weeks of 1938, more than 30,000 Jews that were arrested during Krystallnatch were released. Also, in the winters of 1938 and 1939, 120,00 more Jews emigrated, and charity organizations around the world took them in. These organizations managed to persuade their government to allow German-Jews to settle there.

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Jewish emigration and persecution by Zachary Leos

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Jewish emigration and persecution by Zachary Leos

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During 1933-1939 Jews were arrested and were stripped of civil rights. They also were incarcerated into concentration camps. The Jews responded to this persecution by segregating themselves from the Germans and fleeing Germany to many parts of the world. More Jews would have emigrated but some countries weren't as willing to accept them.

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Jewish emigration from Germany, 1933-1940

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Between 1933 and 1939, Jews in Germany were subjected to arrest, economic boycott, the loss of civil rights and citizenship, incarceration in concentration camps, random violence, and the state-organized Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") pogrom. Jews reacted to Nazi persecution in a number of ways.

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The Nazi flag was a key part in Hitler's propaganda to convince people to go against the Jews.

The swastica on the flag is thought to represent a twisted cross, which bashed the Jewish religion, but it is also thought to be two jagged "S'' letters to represent the worker party and socialism.

The German words at the bottom of the image say 'Long Live Germany'.

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hitler and the nazi flag - Google Search

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AntiSemitism explanation, by Derick Kingsly

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AntiSemitism explanation, by Derick Kingsly

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Many people believe that Jews are in Antisemitism because of their intelligence. Their intelligence makes people dislike them.

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The Nazi's defenition of a Jew by Ashley Morris

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The Nazi's defenition of a Jew by Ashley Morris

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Even if a person was not a Jew, they were determined to be a Jew if their ancestors were. These were part of the Nuremberg Laws:
1. A Jew is a person descended from at least three grandparents who were full Jews by race.
2. They are considered a Jew if they are married to a  Jew by ancestry.
3.They are considered a Jew if they are the offspring of a marriage with a Jew.

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Anne Frank is famous Houlocaust survivor who hid with her family in a room called the Secret Annex, which was hidden by a door disguised as a bookshelf. She is best known for her published diary written while in hiding.

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Museum closed - The Anne Frank House is closed until 1 June 2020 due to the corona virus.

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What does the word Holocaust mean? by Kiyana Cole.

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What does the word Holocaust mean? by Kiyana Cole.

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The definition of the word holocaust is destruction or slaughter on a mass scale, especially caused by fire or nuclear war.

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This video shows Antisemitism is not only common for Jews, but happens to any race. It is a form of discrimination and can create many problems.

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Picture of  Jewish Emigration during the Holocausts(1933-1940). by Kiyana Cole

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Picture of  Jewish Emigration during the Holocausts(1933-1940). by Kiyana Cole

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Jewish emigration from Germany, 1933-1940

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Between 1933 and 1939, Jews in Germany were subjected to arrest, economic boycott, the loss of civil rights and citizenship, incarceration in concentration camps, random violence, and the state-organized Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") pogrom. Jews reacted to Nazi persecution in a number of ways.

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How was propaganda used to convince people against those that Nazis wanted to separate? By Ashley Morris

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How was propaganda used to convince people against those that Nazis wanted to separate? By Ashley Morris

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The Nazis controlled propaganda by firing all media and newspaper employees that were not supporting or part of the Nazis Germans. Nazis also wrote enforced teachers to use new school books that taught children about the dangers of Jews, and incorporated discrimination of the Jews into every subject as well as practice problems. Nazis also went on a rampage and stole all other books from housholds to burn so that no person would be conflicted by hating the Jews by books with political, religious, or social ideas.

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State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda What is Propaganda? - State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

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This exhibition encourages us to think about what propaganda is, how it works, and how to respond when it aims to divide people and promote violence.

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Source for Nuremberg laws

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The Nuremberg Race Laws At the annual party rally held in Nuremberg in 1935, the Nazis announced new laws which institutionalized many of the racial theories prevalent in Nazi ideology. The laws excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or related blood." Ancillary ordinances to the laws disenfranchised Jews and deprived them of most political rights.

The Nuremberg Laws, as they became known, did not define a "Jew" as someone with particular religious beliefs. Instead, anyone who had three or four Jewish grandparents was defined as a Jew, regardless of whether that individual identified himself or herself as a Jew or belonged to the Jewish religious community. Many Germans who had not practiced Judaism for years found themselves caught in the grip of Nazi terror. Even people with Jewish grandparents who had converted to Christianity were defined as Jews.

For a brief period after Nuremberg, in the weeks before and during the 1936 Olympic Games held in Berlin, the Nazi regime actually moderated its anti-Jewish attacks and even removed some of the signs saying "Jews Unwelcome" from public places. Hitler did not want international criticism of his government to result in the transfer of the Games to another country. Such a loss would have been a serious blow to German prestige.

After the Olympic Games (in which the Nazis did not allow German Jewish athletes to participate), the Nazis again stepped up the persecution of German Jews. In 1937 and 1938, the government set out to impoverish Jews by requiring them to register their property and then by "Aryanizing" Jewish businesses. This meant that Jewish workers and managers were dismissed, and the ownership of most Jewish businesses was taken over by non-Jewish Germans who bought them at bargain prices fixed by Nazis. Jewish doctors were forbidden to treat non-Jews, and Jewish lawyers were not permitted to practice law.

Like everyone in Germany, Jews were required to carry identity cards, but the government added special identifying marks to theirs: a red "J" stamped on them and new middle names for all those Jews who did not possess recognizably "Jewish" first names-"Israel" for males, "Sara" for females. Such cards allowed the police to identify Jews easily.

Key Dates

September 15, 1935
Nuremberg Laws are instituted
At their annual party rally, the Nazis announce new laws that revoke Reich citizenship for Jews and prohibit Jews from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or related blood." "Racial infamy," as this becomes known, is made a criminal offense. The Nuremberg Laws define a "Jew" as someone with three or four Jewish grandparents. Consequently, the Nazis classify as Jews thousands of people who had converted from Judaism to another religion, among them even Roman Catholic priests and nuns and Protestant ministers whose grandparents were Jewish.

October 18, 1935
New marriage requirements instituted
The "Law for the Protection of the Hereditary Health of the German People" requires all prospective marriage partners to obtain from the public health authorities a certificate of fitness to marry. Such certificates are refused to those suffering from "hereditary illnesses" and contagious diseases and those attempting to marry in violation of the Nuremberg Laws.

November 14, 1935
Nuremberg Law extended to other groups
The first supplemental decree of the Nuremberg Laws extends the prohibition on marriage or sexual relations between people who could produce "racially suspect" offspring. A week later, the minister of the interior interprets this to mean relations between "those of German or related blood" and Roma (Gypsies), blacks, or their offspring.

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The Nuremberg Race Laws At the annual party rally held in Nuremberg in 1935, the Nazis announced new laws which institutionalized many of the racial theories prevalent in Nazi ideology. The laws excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or related blood."

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an informative 55 second short film describing and showing footage from the holocaust.

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What is the Holocaust Part 1/7: Introduction

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Kristallnacht Information Video. By Kaitlyn Espe

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Kristallnacht Information Video. By Kaitlyn Espe

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The video explains that, as well as violence occurring on private property, the German Nazi's often harassed, punished, and killed Jews among the streets. That these chain of actions, farther led to the persecution of 6 million Jews.

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Kristallnacht: The Night of Broken Glass

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On November 9, 1938, an unprecedented pogrom was carried out throughout Nazi Germany, That night became known as Kristallnacht, or "the night of broken glass." Learn more about it here: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/kristallnacht/

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Nuremberg Laws and the Aryan race by Zach Leos

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Nuremberg Laws and the Aryan race by Zach Leos

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The Nuremberg Laws stated that anyone with three or more Jewish grandparents was a Jew. These laws also made it so a Jew couldn't marry or have kids with a German

The Aryan race was what Hitler considered to be the superior race. He used "Aryan" as a meaning to a "pure German". To Aryanize means to remove all non Aryans from a place.

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Hitler argued that the German (he wrongly described them as the Aryan race) was superior to all others. Hitler was obsessed with 'racial purity'. He used the word 'Aryan' to describe his idea of a 'pure German race' or Herrenvolk. The 'Aryan race' had a duty to control the world.

The Nazis believed that the Aryans had the most "pure blood" of all the people on earth. The ideal Aryan had pale skin, blond hair and blue eyes.

Non-Aryans came to be seen as impure and even evil. Hitler believed that Aryan superiority was being threatened particularly by the Jews. But a league table of 'races' was created with the Aryans at the top and with Jews, Gypsies and black people at the bottom. These 'inferior' people were seen as a threat to the purity and strength of the German nation.

The term Aryan originally meant something completely different. In an old Indian language it means 'noble' and describes the upper class of ancient Indian society. The Nazis linked he word 'Aryan' with the German word 'Ehre', which means 'honour' and said Aryan meant 'the honourable people'.

This vivid poster from the September 1930 Reichstag election summarizes Nazi ideology in a single image. A Nazi sword kills a snake, the blade passing through a red Star of David. The red words coming from the snake are: usury, Versailles, unemployment, war guilt lie, Marxism, Bolshevism, lies and betrayal, inflation, Locarno, Dawes Pact, Young Plan, corruption, Barmat, Kutistker, Sklarek [the last three Jews involved in major financial scandals], prostitution, terror, civil war. Source: www.calvin.edu

This vivid poster from the September 1930 Reichstag election summarizes Nazi ideology in a single image. A Nazi sword kills a snake, the blade passing through a red Star of David. The red words coming from the snake are: usury, Versailles, unemployment, war guilt lie, Marxism, Bolshevism, lies and betrayal, inflation, Locarno, Dawes Pact, Young Plan, corruption, Barmat, Kutistker, Sklarek [the last three Jews involved in major financial scandals], prostitution, terror, civil war. Source: www.calvin.edu

The use of propaganda

The Nazi totalitarian government had total control over men, women, youth, newspapers, radio, art, books, music, universities, schools, police, army, law courts and religion. In other words, they controlled every aspect of life in Germany.

To control every part of every German's life, the Nazi Party had to persuade people to believe that Hitler had the answers to all their problems. The Nazi Party used terror, on the one hand, and propaganda on the other.

The Nazi Party used propaganda to tell people how to think. They wanted to control people's thoughts, to stop people fearing the enemy and to encourage people to work together to defeat the Nazis enemies. Nazi propaganda used fear, exaggeration and lies to get people to support them. They had a special person in charge of propaganda. Josef Goebbels was the Minister of Propaganda.

In schools, universities and churches people were indoctrinated with Nazi teachings. Women were encouraged to have many children, and to stay at home to bring them up, as the Nazis recognised the important role mothers could play in the indoctrination of their children. All children had to belong to the Hitler Youth Movement where they learnt Nazi ideas and did physical exercise. Boys were taught to use weapons.

What is progaganda?

Propaganda is persuasive communication which influences beliefs, opinions and emotions.

Propaganda may be true or false, but it is always deliberately used to influence people.

Propaganda does not stand up to criticism.

Propaganda appeals to the heart or emotions, not to the mind or reason.

Propaganda in our world today

Propaganda was not just something that Hitler used. It is widely used in our society today.

Mass communication makes propaganda more sophisticated. We come across propaganda on television, on radio, and in popular magazines. We are bombarded with propaganda everyday in advertising and by politicians.

It is an important life skill to learn to think critically and to make up your own mind about things. In a democratic society we have the opportunity to make up your own minds! But, it is important to remember to allow others to have different opinions to your own.

War is very unpleasant. Governments have changed the unpleasant words to make the reality of war easier for us to handle. Here are some American examples:

The War Department was changed to The Department of Defense in the 1940s

In the 1980s, the MX-Missile was renamed "The Peacekeeper"

During wartime, civilian casualties are called 'collateral damage' and murder is called 'liquidation'

Traumatised soldiers were called 'shell shocked'. This has been changed to 'combat fatigue' and then to 'post traumatic stress disorder' - a phrase that has nothing to do with the harsh reality of war at all.

What is anti-Semitism?

Anti-Semitism is the hatred of Jews. Anti-Semitism was not a new thing in Europe in the 1930s. It was not something that the Nazis invented. Hatred of Jews had existed for hundreds of years. Jews were often used as a scapegoat when things went wrong - they were blamed for no reason. A 'scapegoat' is someone who is blamed for somebody else's mistake or wrongdoing. The Nazis created scapegoats of the Jews so that they do not have to take responsibility for their own mistakes.

The Nazis said that Jews were inferior and undesirable. Propaganda was used in schools and at rallies, on the radio, in posters, films and newspapers to increase Anti-Semitism and make people believe that 'The Jews are our misfortune.'

The Nazis stereotyped Jews. That means that they createda simplistic, false impression of Jews. Hitler gave the following instructions to Goebbels, his Propaganda Minister:

"...bring up the Jewish question again and again and again, unceasingly. Every emotional aversion, however slight, must be exploited ruthlessly"¦the emotional aversion to Jews is to be heightened by all possible means". - Adolf Hitler

Every issue of the weekly newspaper, Der StÁ¼rmer repeated on its front page in large letters the slogans:
"THE JEWS ARE OUR MISFORTUNE"

"HE WHO KNOWS THE JEW KNOWS THE DEVIL"
In additon the newspapers favourite was 'race defilement'. Look at this quote from the newspaper:

"Moreover the Jew has in his veins a large element of Negro blood; his frizzy hair, his wolf lips, the colour of his eyeballs proves this as effectually as the insatiable sexual greed which hesitates at no crime and finds its supremest triumph in the brutal defilement of women of another race. This bestial lust obsesses even a barely mature Jew boy"¦" - Der StÁ¼rmer, August 1945

'The Night of Broken Glass'. On November 8, 1938, Nazis and others smashed windows and ransacked thousands of Jewish shops in numerous German cities and villages. The coordinated attacks were the first large-scale, openly anti-Semitic act of the Third Reich. Source: www.time.com

Children's books and school books were used to influence children against the Jews. It is easier to get the message across to younger children than to adults. For example, in one book, a Jew was depicted as a 'poison mushroom'. Children know that poison mushrooms are harmful, and they associated poison mushrooms with Jewish people.

The Nazis required Jews to wear a yellow Star of David made of fabric and stitched to their clothing.

Creating 'Aryans'

One of the Nazis aims was the creation of a Master Race. This meant encouraging people with "pure blood" (in other words, those with blond hair and blue eyes) to have more children. In 1935 the leader of the Schutzstaffeln (SS), Heinrich Himmler, created a project called the Lebensborn, which means 'spring of life'. The aim of the project was to give young 'racially pure' girls the opportunity to give birth in secret. Such 'pure' girls could come to these Lebensborn centres to create a baby with one of the SS officers. They could also have the baby at the Lebensborn centre. The children would then be taken away from their mothers and given to the SS, who took charge of their education and upbringing. Many of these children grew up never knowing their biological parents.

The Lebensborn policy went even further during World War II. In the countries that Germany occupied, the SS would kidnap children who had blonde hair and blue eyes, and take them to the Lebensborn centres. There, they were forced to reject their background and to accept the Nazi teachings. Some were told that their parents had abandoned them. In the end, most of them were however taken to German concentration or death camps, where they were killed. Others were adopted by SS families. This process was known as Germanisation.

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How did the Nazis construct an Aryan identity?

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Hitler argued that the German (he wrongly described them as the Aryan race) was superior to all others. Hitler was obsessed with 'racial purity'. He used the word 'Aryan' to describe his idea of a 'pure German race' or Herrenvolk. The 'Aryan race' had a duty to control the world.

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What is the anti-Semitism? by Derick Kingsly

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What is the anti-Semitism? by Derick Kingsly

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AntiSemitism is the belief or behavior of being hostile toward Jews just because they are Jewish.
It takes the form of religious teachings that proclaim the inferiority of Jews.

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The belief or behavior hostile toward Jews just because they are Jewish. It may take the form of religious teachings that proclaim the inferiority of Jews, for instance, or political efforts to isolate, oppress, or otherwise injure them. It may also include prejudiced or stereotyped views about Jews.

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Anti-Semitism is hostile behavior toward Jews just because they are Jewish, including stereotyped views and teachings proclaiming the inferiority of Jews.

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Describe the Kristallnacht and what this German word means. By Kaitlyn Espe

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Describe the Kristallnacht and what this German word means. By Kaitlyn Espe

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Kristallnacht refers to, "Night of Crystal", or "Night of Broken Glass". Kristallnacht got it's name as a result of the Holocaust. The streets were covered in broken glass, that had been the result of public violence. The glass had usually came from, Jewish homes, and Jewish businesses.

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A Nationwide Pogrom

Kristallnacht, literally, "Night of Crystal," is often referred to as the "Night of Broken Glass." The name refers to the wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms which took place on November 9 and 10, 1938. This wave of violence took place throughout Germany, annexed Austria, and in areas of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia recently occupied by German troops.

Origin of the Name "Kristallnacht"

Kristallnacht owes its name to the shards of shattered glass that lined German streets in the wake of the pogrom-broken glass from the windows of synagogues, homes, and Jewish-owned businesses plundered and destroyed during the violence.

Assassination of Ernst vom Rath

The violence was instigated primarily by Nazi Party officials and members of the SA ( Sturmabteilungen: literally Assault Detachments, but commonly known as Storm Troopers) and Hitler Youth.

In its aftermath, German officials announced that Kristallnacht had erupted as a spontaneous outburst of public sentiment in response to the assassination of Ernst vom Rath. Vom Rath was a German embassy official stationed in Paris. Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old Polish Jew, had shot the diplomat on November 7, 1938. A few days earlier, German authorities had expelled thousands of Jews of Polish citizenship living in Germany from the Reich; Grynszpan had received news that his parents, residents in Germany since 1911, were among them.

Grynszpan's parents and the other expelled Polish Jews were initially denied entry into their native Poland. They found themselves stranded in a refugee camp near the town of Zbaszyn in the border region between Poland and Germany. Already living illegally in Paris himself, a desperate Grynszpan apparently sought revenge for his family's precarious circumstances by appearing at the German embassy and shooting the diplomatic official assigned to assist him.

Vom Rath died on November 9, 1938, two days after the shooting. The day happened to coincide with the anniversary of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, an important date in the National Socialist calendar. The Nazi Party leadership, assembled in Munich for the commemoration, chose to use the occasion as a pretext to launch a night of antisemitic excesses. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, a chief instigator of the Kristallnacht pogroms, suggested to the convened Nazi 'Old Guard' that 'World Jewry' had conspired to commit the assassination. He announced that "the Führer has decided that ... demonstrations should not be prepared or organized by the Party, but insofar as they erupt spontaneously, they are not to be hampered."

November 9-10

Goebbels' words appear to have been taken as a command for unleashing the violence. After his speech, the assembled regional Party leaders issued instructions to their local offices. Violence began to erupt in various parts of the Reich throughout the late evening and early morning hours of November 9-10. At 1:20 a.m. on November 10, Reinhard Heydrich, in his capacity as head of the Security Police ( Sicherheitspolizei) sent an urgent telegram to headquarters and stations of the State Police and to SA leaders in their various districts, which contained directives regarding the riots. SA and Hitler Youth units throughout Germany and its annexed territories engaged in the destruction of Jewish-owned homes and businesses. Members of many units wore civilian clothes to support the fiction that the disturbances were expressions of 'outraged public reaction.'

Despite the outward appearance of spontaneous violence, and the local cast which the pogrom took on in various regions throughout the Reich, the central orders Heydrich relayed gave specific instructions: the "spontaneous" rioters were to take no measures endangering non-Jewish German life or property; they were not to subject foreigners (even Jewish foreigners) to violence; and they were to remove all synagogue archives prior to vandalizing synagogues and other properties of the Jewish communities, and to transfer that archival material to the Security Service ( Sicherheitsdienst, or SD). The orders also indicated that police officials should arrest as many Jews as local jails could hold, preferably young, healthy men.

Destruction of Synagogues and Buildings

The rioters destroyed 267 synagogues throughout Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland. Many synagogues burned throughout the night in full view of the public and of local firefighters, who had received orders to intervene only to prevent flames from spreading to nearby buildings. SA and Hitler Youth members across the country shattered the shop windows of an estimated 7,500 Jewish-owned commercial establishments and looted their wares. Jewish cemeteries became a particular object of desecration in many regions.

The pogrom proved especially destructive in Berlin and Vienna, home to the two largest Jewish communities in the German Reich. Mobs of SA men roamed the streets, attacking Jews in their houses and forcing Jews they encountered to perform acts of public humiliation. Although murder did not figure in the central directives, Kristallnacht claimed the lives of at least 91 Jews between 9 and 10 November. Police records of the period document a high number of rapes and of suicides in the aftermath of the violence.

Arrests of Jewish Men

As the pogrom spread, units of the SS and Gestapo (Secret State Police), following Heydrich's instructions, arrested up to 30,000 Jewish males, and transferred most of them from local prisons to Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, and other concentration camps.

Significantly, Kristallnacht marks the first instance in which the Nazi regime incarcerated Jews on a massive scale simply on the basis of their ethnicity. Hundreds died in the camps as a result of the brutal treatment they endured. Most did obtain release over the next three months on the condition that they begin the process of emigration from Germany. Indeed, the effects of Kristallnacht would serve as a spur to the emigration of Jews from Germany in the months to come.

Aftermath

In the immediate aftermath of the pogrom, many German leaders, like Hermann Göring, criticized the extensive material losses produced by the antisemitic riots, pointing out that if nothing were done to intervene, German insurance companies-not Jewish-owned businesses-would have to carry the costs of the damages. Nevertheless, Göring and other top party leaders decided to use the opportunity to introduce measures to eliminate Jews and perceived Jewish influence from the German economic sphere.

The German government made an immediate pronouncement that "the Jews" themselves were to blame for the pogrom and imposed a fine of one billion Reichsmark (some 400 million US dollars at 1938 rates) on the German Jewish community. The Reich government confiscated all insurance payouts to Jews whose businesses and homes were looted or destroyed, leaving the Jewish owners personally responsible for the cost of all repairs.

Anti-Jewish Legislation

In the weeks that followed, the German government promulgated dozens of laws and decrees designed to deprive Jews of their property and of their means of livelihood. Many of these laws enforced "Aryanization" policy-the transfer of Jewish-owned enterprises and property to "Aryan" ownership, usually for a fraction of their true value. Ensuing legislation barred Jews, already ineligible for employment in the public sector, from practicing most professions in the private sector. The legislation made further strides in removing Jews from public life. German education officials expelled Jewish children still attending German schools. German Jews lost their right to hold a driver's license or own an automobile. Legislation restricted access to public transport. Jews could no longer gain admittance to "German" theaters, movie cinemas, or concert halls.

American Press Reports on Kristallnacht

American newspapers across the country covered the Nazi assault on Jews in front-page, banner headlines, and articles about the events continued to appear for several weeks. No other story about the persecution of the Jews received such widespread and sustained attention from the American press at any other time during the Nazi era.

German censors sought to block images of Kristallnacht from reaching newspapers in the United States. However, magazine was able to publish some images in its November 28, 1938, issue.

Perhaps no headline so aptly summarized the danger for the Jews under the Nazi regime than that published on the front page of the Los Angeles Examiner on November 23, 1938: "Nazis Warn World Jews Will Be Wiped Out Unless Evacuated By Democracies."

US President Denounces the Nazis

At his press conference on November 15, 1938, one week after Kristallnacht, President Franklin D. Roosevelt denounced Nazi Germany's terror attack on Jews, saying, "I myself could scarcely believe that such things could occur in a twentieth-century civilization." FDR made an exception to his practice of off-the-record press conferences by allowing newspapers to quote this statement from his meeting with reporters that day.

The president also announced that he had recalled the US ambassador to Germany, Hugh Wilson. The United States was the only nation to recall its ambassador and would not replace him until after the end of the war in 1945.

In response to the news of Nazi terror against Jews, Americans protested in cities including New York and Los Angeles. Other Americans called for an increase in the number of immigrants allowed to enter the country.

Pressure on the US Immigration System

Despite the increasing threat faced by Jews living under Nazi rule in Germany and Austria, President Roosevelt knew that he would not be able to persuade Congress to reconsider immigration regulations. At the same November 15 press conference, a reporter asked the president if he would recommend relaxing the restrictions on immigration in order to admit the Jewish refugees from Europe. Roosevelt replied, "That is not in contemplation; we have the quota system."

Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, whose department oversaw the Immigration and Naturalization Service, persuaded President Roosevelt to allow approximately 12,000 Germans, most of whom were Jews and already in the United States on visitor visas, to remain in the country indefinitely. Although he knew extending the visas could raise congressional objection, the president made his position clear. "I cannot," he said, "in any decent humanity, throw them out." Indeed, no Jews were forced to leave the United States to return to Nazi-occupied Europe for the duration of the war.

Some lawmakers who hoped to change the country's restrictive immigration quota laws saw an opportunity in the wave of sympathy among Americans for refugees after Kristallnacht. On February 9, 1939, Senator Robert F. Wagner (D-NY) and Representative Edith Nourse Rogers (R-MA) introduced identical bills into Congress to offer refuge to 20,000 children under 14 from the Greater German Reich. Despite widespread support, the Wagner-Rogers Bill died in Congress. The quota system remained unchanged throughout the war and into the 1960s.

A Turning Point

The events of Kristallnacht represented one of the most important turning points in National Socialist antisemitic policy. Historians have noted that after the pogrom, anti-Jewish policy was concentrated more and more concretely into the hands of the SS. Moreover, the passivity with which most German civilians responded to the violence signaled to the Nazi regime that the German public was prepared for more radical measures.

The Nazi regime expanded and radicalized measures aimed at removing Jews entirely from German economic and social life in the forthcoming years. The regime moved eventually toward policies of forced emigration, and finally toward the realization of a Germany "free of Jews" ( judenrein) by deportation of the Jewish population "to the East."

Thus, Kristallnacht figures as an essential turning point in Nazi Germany's persecution of Jews, which culminated in the attempt to annihilate the European Jews.

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Kristallnacht, literally, "Night of Crystal," is often referred to as the "Night of Broken Glass." The name refers to the wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms which took place on November 9 and 10, 1938. This wave of violence took place throughout Germany, annexed Austria, and in areas of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia recently occupied by German troops.

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What other races did the Nazis discriminate? by Kiyana Cole

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What other races did the Nazis discriminate? by Kiyana Cole

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The Nazis discriminated the Jews, communists, trade unionists, Muslims, homosexuals, and feminists.

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O, Little Root of a Dream by Paul Celan loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch O, little root of a dream you enmire me here; I'm undermined by blood - no longer seen, enslaved by death.

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Derick Kingsly
Ashley Morris
Kaitlyn Espe
Kiyana Cole
Zachary Leos