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What is the relationship between how Jews were portrayed to the public and their persecution during the holocaust?
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THE PERSECUTION OF GERMAN JEWS AFTER THE NAZI SEIZURE OF POWER
The approximately 500 000 Jews living in Germany (almost 0.77% of the population) soon began to feel the force of Nazi anti-Semitism. The coming to power of Adolf Hitler (link in Czech) and the NSDAP saw the beginning of a process in which Jews were excluded from German society, bullied and persecuted. Although it was slowed down at times for reasons of tactics and international politics, the aim of this process was, from the very start, the destruction of Jews.
The period immediately following the Nazi seizure of power was marked by „spontaneous“ persecution, above all by SA units, who in various places conducted intimidation and terror campaigns, and physically attacked the Jewish population. The first Jews, in particular immigrants from Eastern Europe, were sent to concentration camps. From the earliest days of the new regime, various decrees relating to Jews started to be issued, limiting their ability to carry out their professions, enter public facilities and so on. Many of these decrees were issued by local authorities, and numerous German communities put up signs forbidding Jews from entering their territory.
One of the chief demands of all anti-Semitic programmes was that Jews should be squeezed out of the economy. On the 1st of April 1933, the Nazi regime announced a boycott of Jewish tradesmen, craftsmen, lawyers and doctors, accompanied by intensive anti-Semitic propaganda that claimed the boycott was merely reciprocation for the hostile attitude of foreign Jews towards the new German regime. Observance of the boycott was supervised and enforced by members of the SA and SS. On the 4th of April, the boycott officially ended, having been deemed to have fulfilled its aim. After the first „revolutionary“ phase of the persecution of Jews and their expulsion from the German economy, the Nazis, fearing economic loss, chose to pursue a more cautious approach, and exercised slightly more restraint in these „spontaneous“ measures against Jews. Still, the process of the economic and social ostracism of Jews never stopped; it was only speeded up or slowed down according to the circumstances.
Immediately after the takeover, artists, scientists and other significant public figures of Jewish origin were pushed out of their functions. Many of them chose to emigrate, the best-known being the physicist Albert Einstein, creator of the theory of relativity, who emigrated to the US.
Systematic efforts of forcing Jews out of other professions also began. Many lawyers, doctors and university professors had to leave their jobs. On the 7th of April 1933, a law on the renewal of the civil service was passed (Gesetz dur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums), which allowed „non-Aryan“, Communist and other officials whom the Nazis considered untrustworthy to be made redundant. The removal of Jews from the civil service was without doubt the main aim of the law, and on its basis several thousand „non-Aryan“ employees were dismissed.
During the entire period after the Nazis took power, the German population was subjected to a long-lasting and unrelenting anti-Semitic campaign. The aim was to convince Germans that world Jewry was to blame for Germany's defeat in the First World War and its subsequent humiliation, and that only by ridding itself of Jews could Germany bloom again. Nazi propaganda also claimed that racial purity had to be maintained, and that the mixing of the allegedly superior German race with others, above all the Jewish race, had to be prevented. Since 1923 the German Gauleiter (regional leader) Julius Streicher had published a fiercely anti-Semitic magazine called Der Sturmer, in which brutal anti-Jewish propaganda was complemented by heavily vulgarity elements. Anti-Semitism and racism became a normal part not just of public campaigns, but also of teachings in schools. An extreme example of anti-Semitic propaganda for young people was a textbook issued by Stürm called Giftpilz (The Toadstool; link in Czech), in which the dangerous nature of the Jews was explained to children with the aid of illustrations and vivid stories.