The Jews, acting for World Jewry, had done all they could to bring about defeat in WW1. These claims justified persecution, terrorisation and genocide. Germany’s Jewish Community In 1933 only 0.7% of Germany was Jewish. They were also a diminishing minority. They were under represented in the upper reaches of industry and finance.
The population of Germany decreased a lot over the years of the Holocaust. Hitler destroyed 6 million Jews all over Europe, mostly in Germany, and killed 11 million overall. In a way, Hitler’s goal was achieved but it was a cruel goal. He was truly a crazy person. He brainwashed people to believe that Jews were evil people and they weren’t true Germans.
On the other hand, the anguished effects of WWI were still enduring in the Germanic collective memory. Many Germans perceived The Versailles Treaty, signed by the Allies in 1919, as a humiliation. The treaty contained a number of heavy impositions to Germany which were socio-economically unbearable to a once great and powerfu l nation. The amount that had to be paid to the Allies as war damage 2 made the Mark lost all its value, causing a hyperinflation so severe that the prices increased by over 100 times in just one year (Bresciani -Turroni, 1968.). The hyperinflation crisis, which was only solved in 1924, lasted enough time to ruin thousands of Germanic families, thus worsening the general feeling of rage against the treaty.
There were many victims, and each of them had a different colored triangle with a letter on it that they had to wear. Some of the victims were Jews, Gypsies, people with physical or mental disabilities, and Jehovah witnesses. These victims were selected simply because they were not true Aryans to Hitler and the Nazi government anyways. How was the economy affected by the holocaust? The economy was already in a depression because of the World Wars.
Analyse two theological responses to the Shoah and give reasons to explain whether or not you find them convincing? Many things have affected Jewish thinking about God: evolution, existentialism and postmodernism being a few examples. However, nothing has affected it more, and presented such a challenge to the Jewish people than done by the Holocaust . Between 1941 and 1945, the Nazi party, led by Adolf Hitler, murdered between five to six million Jewish people. That was one third of the world Jewish population wiped out in four years .
Jewish businesses along with almost every synagogue in Germany were damaged or completely destroyed. As the Nuremberg Laws felt insufficient in solving the “Jewish question”, and with the occupation of eastern Poland after September 1939, which held about two million Jews, the treatment of the Jews became an urgent matter to Adolf
Jackson J. Spielvogel, author of Hitler and Nazi Germany: A History, says, “About 40% of Europe’s 1 million Gypsies were gassed and burned.” Most people think of the Jews being the only people being wiped out in large numbers, but obviously that was not the case. A camp was opened up in Auschwitz-Birkenau sector Blle know as Zigeunerlager or Gypsy camp. In this gypsy family camp the prisoners were forced to wear black triangles. They were given tattoos that stated with the letter ‘z’ followed by camp numbers. For example ‘z2∙9881’ was someone’s number.
At the bottom of the front page of each issue, in bold letters, the paper proclaimed, "The Jews are our misfortune!" The newspaper also regularly featured cartoons of Jews in which they were caricatured as hooked-nosed and ape-like. The influence of the newspaper was far-reaching, by 1938 about a half million copies were distributed weekly. Soon after he became chancellor, Hitler called for new elections in an effort to get full control of the Reichstag, the German parliament, for the Nazis. The Nazis used the government apparatus to terrorize the other parties.
After two revolts in AD 70 and AD 135, many Jews were ostracized from Palestine and forbidden to live there. They made settlements wherever possible and quite often they were persecuted and compelled to move on from country to country. Known as 'Christ killers', the Jews were despised throughout the Christian world and beyond, this anti-Semitism was caused mainly from the Jew considering themselves as 'Gods chosen people’. As a result near the end of the nineteenth century when anti-Semitism in Europe was the norm, an estimated three million Jews fled Eastern Europe in an attempt to avoid persecution. Around this time Zionism was developed, its aim was to establish its national homeland in Palestine and call it - by it title in the Old Testament - Israel.
Circumstances Leading to the Holocaust The Holocaust happened in very resent history. Yet it almost seems fanciful that an event to that magnitude could have taken place in recent history, hardly sixty years ago in a “civilized” country nonetheless. It is hard to pinpoint when the intentions of the Holocaust and extermination of millions of Jews happened. There are many circumstances that compiled to allow for the world to be able to completely ignore what was taking place in these death camps and for the German soldiers to carry out the orders. Germany was in a poor state at the time in it’s economy and it’s morale.