https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/search/index.php?

query=Early+stages+of+persecution&Submit=Search

1. Persecution of Homosexuals in the Third Reich

(Friendship). In this early stage the Nazis drove homosexuals underground, destroying their
networks of ... 1933, the Nazis intensified persecution of German male homosexuals. Persecution
ranged from the ... considered a racial danger. SS chief Heinrich Himmler directed the increasing
persecution of homosexuals in
ARTICLE

2. Persecution of Roma (Gypsies) in Prewar Germany, 19331939

Persecution of Roma (Gypsies) in Germany, and indeed in all of Europe, preceded the Nazi takeover
... of power in 1933. The police in Bavaria, Germany, maintained a central registry of Roma
as early as ... measures of persecution against the Roma. After the Nazis had decided that Roma had
alien blood, one of
ARTICLE

3. Resistance in the Smaller Ghettos of Eastern Europe

persecution, and impending annihilation in a variety of different ways. From an early stage,
sometimes even ... Project of the Miles Lerman CenterThe Warsaw ghetto uprising of April 1943 is
often viewed as the ... classic example of Jewish armed resistance to Nazi oppression during the
Holocaust. Indeed, most studies
ARTICLE

4. Jews in North Africa: Oppression and Resistance

Resistance to the German persecution of Tunisian Jews came from the sympathetic Vichy residentgeneral ... The Jews of North Africa were relatively fortunate because their distance from German
concentration ... camps in central and eastern Europe permitted them to avoid the fate of their
coreligionists in Europe ... rebels in the Spanish Civil War, persons suspected or
convicted of political crimes, and Jewish refugees
ARTICLE

HTTP://WWW.YADVASHEM.ORG/YV/EN/HOLOCAUST/ABOUT/01/PERSECUTION.ASP

The Holocaust
Nazi Germany and the Jews 1933-1939
Rise of the Nazis and Beginning of Persecution
The Rise of the Nazis to Power in Germany
Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to power due to the social and political circumstances that characterized the interwar
period in Germany. Many Germans could not concede their countrys defeat in World War I, arguing that
backstabbing and weakness in the rear had paralyzed and, eventually, caused the front to collapse. The Jews, they
claimed, had done much to spread defeatism and thus destroy the German army. Democracy in the Weimar
Republic, they argued, was a form of governance that had been imposed on Germany and was unsuited to the
German nature and way of life. They construed the terms of the Versailles peace treaty and the steep compensation
payments that it entailed as revenge by the victors and a glaring injustice. This frustration, together with intransigent
resistance and warnings about the surging menace of Communism, created fertile soil for the growth of radical rightwing groups in Germany, spawning entities such as the Nazi Party.

In 1925, a transitory economic upturn and a promising political dialogue brought relative calm into sight. However, the
severe international economic crisis that erupted in 1929 carried the instability to new heights.

In 1919, Adolf Hitler, a released soldier wounded in WWI, joined a small and insignificant group called the National
Socialist Party. He became the groups leader and formulated the racial and antisemitic principles in its charter. In
1923 party activists led a revolt and tried to seize power in Munich, but failed. Hitler was imprisoned, during which
time he wrote his venomous book Mein Kampf (My Struggle), in which he expressed his ideas about racial theory and
Nazi global dominion. Hitler realized that he must employ legitimate democratic means in his struggle to seize power.
However, he and his associates left no doubt about their belief in democratic freedoms as mere tools with which
power might be attained. After his release Hitler reorganized the party.
In the 1924 Reichstag elections, the Nazi Party received three percent of the votes cast and was represented in the
parliament by fourteen delegates. In the 1928 elections, its support declined; the party was able to send only twelve

delegates to the legislature. The turnaround came in 1930, the first elections after the economic crisis began.
Surprisingly, the Nazis received 18.3 percent of the vote and sent 107 delegates to the Reichstag, the German
Parliament. In July 1932, with 230 mandates, they became the largest faction in the House a political force that
made an impact and acceded to power legitimately. President Paul von Hindenburg gave Hitler the mandate to form a
government, and Hitler became Chancellor on January 30, 1933.

The Beginning of the Persecution of Jews in Germany

In the 1930s, Germanys Jews some 500,000 people made up less than one percent (0.8%) of the German
population. Most considered themselves loyal patriots, linked to the German way of life by language and culture.
They excelled in science, literature, the arts, and economic enterprise. 24% of Germanys Nobel Prize winners were
Jewish. However, conversion, intermarriage, and declining birth rates, led some to believe that Jewish life was
doomed to disappear from the German scene altogether.

The paradox was that Nazi ideology stemmed from Germany and the German people, among whom Jews eagerly
wanted to acculturate. Indeed, there was a widespread belief amongst many Jews in the illusion that the role they
played within industry and trade and their contributions to the German economy would prevent the Germans from
completely excluding them.

Nazi anti-Jewish policy functioned on two primary levels: legal measures to expel the Jews from society and strip
them of their rights and property while simultaneously engaging in campaigns of incitement, abuse, terror and
violence of varying proportions. There was one goal: to make the Jews leave Germany.

On March 9, 1933, several weeks after Hitler assumed power, organized attacks on Jews broke out across Germany.
Two weeks later, the Dachau concentration camp, situated near Munich, opened. Dachau became a place of
internment for Communists, Socialists, German liberals and anyone considered an enemy of the Reich. It became
the model for the network of concentration camps that would be established later by the Nazis. Within a few months,
democracy was obliterated in Germany, and the country became a centralized, single-party police state.
On April 1, 1933, a general boycott against German Jews was declared, in which SA members stood outside Jewishowned stores and businesses in order to prevent customers from entering.

Approximately one week later, a law concerning the rehabilitation of the professional civil service was passed. The
purpose of the legislation was to purge the civil service of officials of Jewish origin and those deemed disloyal to the
regime. It was the first racial law that attempted to isolate Jews and oust them from German life. The first laws
banished Jews from the civil service, judicial system, public medicine, and the German army (then being
reorganized). Ceremonial public book burnings took place throughout Germany. Many books were torched solely
because their authors were Jews. The exclusion of Jews from German cultural life was highly visible, ousting their
considerable contribution to the German press, literature, theater, and music.

In September 1935 the Nuremberg Laws were passed, stripping the Jews of their citizenship and forbidding
intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews. Jews were banned from universities; Jewish actors were dismissed from
theaters; Jewish authors works were rejected by publishers; and Jewish journalists were hard-pressed to find
newspapers that would publish their writings. Famous artists and scientists played an important role in this campaign
of dispossession and party labeling of literature, art, and science. Some scientists and physicians were involved in
the theoretical underpinnings of the racial doctrine.

5. Bulgaria
PERSECUTION OF JEWS Beginning in July 1940, Bulgarian authorities instituted anti-Jewish
legislation that ... (under command of Adolf Eichmann) to deport 20,000 Jews as a first stage.
Targeted in these first ... Between 1919 and 1945, Bulgaria was one of several kingdoms located in
southeastern Europe, an area ... often referred to as the Balkans. In 1934, Bulgaria had a
population ofmore than six million people. In
ARTICLE

6. Antisemitic Legislation 19331939

Antisemitism and the persecution of Jews were central tenets of Nazi ideology. In their 25-point ...
make good on their pledge to persecute German Jews soon after their assumption of power. During
the ... levels of government throughout the country were involved in the persecution of Jews as they

conceived ... Jewish civilian workers from the army, and in early 1934, forbade Jewish actors to
perform on the stage
ARTICLE

7. Anti-Jewish Legislation in Prewar Germany

Antisemitism and the persecution of Jews represented a central tenet of Nazi ideology. In their 25 ...
began to make good on their pledge to persecute German Jews soon after their assumption of power.
During ... levels of government throughout the country were involved in the persecution of Jews as
they conceived ... civilian workers from the army; and, in early 1934, forbade Jewish actors to
perform on the stage or screen
ARTICLE

8. Deceiving the Public

campaigns that facilitated the persecution of Jews and others excluded from the Nazi vision of the
National ... element of German national policy after the Nazi takeover in early 1933 was
rearmament. German leaders ... defend European civilization against Communism. The war aims
professed at eachstage of the hostilities ... encouraging war by promising to defend Poland in the
event of German invasion. The Nazi regime even staged a
ARTICLE

9. Hajj Amin al-Husayni: Wartime Propagandist

Arab and Muslim world, as a staging ground for the seizure of all Arab lands. In his vision of the ...
the persecution and suppression of their enemies. Nazi propagandists provided major
coverage ofthe ... insubstantial tour of the Oranienburg concentration camp in early July 1942. The
commandant lectured the Arabs ... throughout the world who sought to advance their own political
goals and extend Axis influence. A host of
ARTICLE

10. Incitement to Genocide in International Law

extermination was considered a form of persecution on political and racial grounds, punishable as a
crime ... had fled to the United States. After the war, Lemkin and others lobbied

at early sessions ofthe ... In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the world was faced with a
challengehow to seek ... justice for an almost unimaginable scale of criminal behaviour, including
the annihilation ofEuropean