1. The History of Anti-Semitism  The roots of anti-Semitism in Germany go back a very long time.  The foundation of hate the Nazis built on was formed centuries earlier.  Jews rarely lived in peace for long as far back as the ancient Roman Empire (63 BC).

2. 11 th Century- Christian knights went on crusades to convert or kill the Muslims of the Middle East; they found easier victims closer to home

3. Crusades continued…  German Christian Crusaders massacred thousands of Jews in German towns  Jews were called “Christ killers” in the early years of Christianity; a belief that persisted through the centuries

4. Middle Ages  Jews were said to have poisoned wells causing years of the plague (“Black Death”) that killed millions in Europe  In the years of the Plague over 200 Jewish communities were destroyed; thousands of Jews were killed Painting: The Black Plague 1349

5. “Blood Libel”  During the Middle Ages, Jews were charged with the ritual murder of Christian children, and said to use their blood during religious ceremonies  The Nazis later used this in their propaganda against the Jews  Jewish communities were raided and destroyed  Jewish children were taken from their parents and raised as Christians  Jews were burned at the stake because they refused to give up their religion

6. Middle Ages continued…  Jews were expelled from country after country  Jews were expelled from England, France, and Spain  Many settled in Eastern Europe, especially Poland  Massacres and pogroms directed at the Jews took place from the 5 th to the 20 th centuries

7. Jewish Laws – what they could and could not do  Jews were forbidden to be doctors, lawyers, or teachers of non-Jews  Jews were not allowed to sell food to Christians  Jews could not be cared for by Christian nurses  Jews were not allowed to live in the same houses as non-Jews

8.  Jews were forced to wear a special article of clothing or a cloth badge Jews were forced to live in separate walled areas called ghettos In the 1800’s signs began to appear that were the building blocks of Nazism Anti-Semitic incidents grew in number and violence Jewish Laws continued…

9. Anti-Semitic Programs Continue into Modern Times  In 1879 Wilhelm Marr used the word “anti-Semitism” for the first time  Marr, known as the father of modern anti-Semitism, based his ideas on what he called“racial” rather than religious characteristics of Jews  This was an important change in the history of Jewish persecution

10.  Jews began to be thought of as a race for the first time  This belief said Jews were different by birth from everyone else  This idea was the cornerstone of Nazi anti-Semitism

11. Anti-Jewish books and pamphlets appeared:  1903: “ The Protocols of the Elders of Zion ’ appeared in Russia.  Inflammatory propaganda about secret plan of a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world  It was translated into German and sold by thousands.

12. Anti-Semitic programs continued into modern times  pogroms in Russia, Poland, and the Ukraine (pogrom-an organized massacre of a particular ethnic group)  1918-1920-about 100,000 Jews murdered in western Ukraine  1919-1921-60,000 Jews killed in pogroms in Poland and Ukraine

13.  1934 100 Jews killed in pogrom in Algeria  1935 increased violence and discrimination against Jews in Poland  1936,1938 more pogroms in Poland  November 9-10, 1938 Kristallnacht - Germany and Austria

14. KRISTALLNACHT

15. Laws and actions against the Jews increase  1927 Jewish cemeteries throughout Germany are desecrated by Nazis, synagogues in Romania destroyed  1933 first concentration camp is established: Dachau  1933 boycott of Jewish lawyers, doctors, and merchants, economic and employment sanctions against Jews increasing

16.  1933 book burning of “non German” books (mostly Jewish)  1933 Jews banned from fields of journalism, art, literature, music, broadcasting, and theater  1935 Nuremberg Laws: deprived Jews of  citizenship, took away voting and other rights  1933-1939 more than 1400 anti-Jewish laws are passed in Germany

17. The Final Solution  Wannsee Conference  the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jewish people  the Nazis began the systematic deportation of Jews from all over Europe to six extermination camps established in former Polish territory  In its entirety, the "Final Solution" consisted of gassings, shootings, random acts of terror, disease, and starvation that accounted for the deaths of about six million Jews -- two-thirds of European Jewry