The document provides a historical overview of anti-Semitism in Europe from ancient times through the Holocaust. It describes how anti-Semitism emerged in ancient times due to the refusal of Jews to assimilate into majority cultures and their different religious practices and customs. It then details the rise of Christian anti-Semitism beginning in the 4th century AD when Christianity became the official Roman religion, as well as increased persecution during the Crusades and Black Death. The document also outlines the development of modern, racial anti-Semitism in the 19th century and the Nazi policies in Germany in the 1930s that systematically stripped Jews of their rights and paved the way for the Holocaust.

1. Provide a historical account of anti-Semitism in Europe.
Lesson 5 : The HolocaustLesson EssayWhen you can accomplish the learning objectives for
this lesson, you should begin work on the lesson essay described below. You may use any
assigned readings, your notes, and other course-related materials to complete this
assignment. Be sure to reread the essay grading criteria on the Grades and Assessments
page.This essay should be about 12,000 words long, typed double space with one-inch
margins on each side. It is worth 150 points and should aIDress the following:There are a
number of historians who regard the Holocaust as a unique occurrence unparalleled by
other crimes in human history. On the basis of what you have just learned about the history
of anti-Semitism over the last 2,500 years, would you agree with this view? Why or why
not?Learning ObjectivesAfter completing this lesson, you should be able to do the
following:Provide a historical account of anti-Semitism in Europe.Describe in detail the
different stages and decisions that led to the Holocaust.Portray the situation in the death
camps.Reflect on the historical significance of the Holocaust.CommentaryA Brief History of
the Jewish PeopleJudaism is the religion of the Jewish people, whose history goes back
almost 6,000 years to biblical times. Today, there are about 13.5 million Jews worldwide.
Most of them live in the United States, Israel, the European Community, and the former
Soviet Republics. Judaism is built on monotheism. The Jewish law is laid down in the Torah,
which consists of the five books of Moses in the Old Testament. According to the Jewish
faith, Jews are the chosen people because God made a special pact with Abraham, from
whom the Jewish people descended. Although this belief in exclusivity is hardly different
from other world religions, it has often been referred to as the reason Jews would seek to
establish world domination, a fear that contributed to the rise of anti-Semitism throughout
the ages.The descendents of Abraham’ s family settled in Egypt peacefully until about 1580
BC, when a new pharaoh (or ruler) in Egypt made them slaves. To escape from bondage, the
Jews, under Moses’ leadership, fled into the desert where they received the Ten
Commandments and ultimately reached the so-called “ promised land” of present-day
Israel. In 586 BC, the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar conquered the southern land of
Judah, devastated Jerusalem, and destroyed the Jewish temple that had been built by King
Salomon around 950 BC. He also led many Jews as slaves into the Babylonian exile and thus
began what has become known as the Diaspora—
the dispersion of Jews outside of Israel that
continues until today. The first Diaspora lasted about fifty years, until the Babylonians were
overthrown by the Persians and the Jews were allowed to go back home, where they built
the second temple in 516 BC. During the following centuries, Judah was controlled by a

2. variety of different powers, including the Persians, the Greeks, and finally the Romans, who,
in 70 AD, under the leadership of Titus, destroyed the second temple and forced the Jewish
people once again into exile. In 132 AD, the Jews under Bar Kochba (or Kokhba) started an
unsuccessful revolt against the Romans, who subsequently decimated the Jewish
community and deliberately sought to undermine their identification with the land of Israel
by renaming itPalaestina.The first Jews had entered German lands with the Roman legions
that established colonies along the Rhine in the first two centuries AD. These Jews were
essentially an agricultural people, and by the third century, some had become successful
winegrowers on the slopes along the Rhine. Others had become merchants, artisans, or
doctors. From these early centuries through the Carolingian Empire and up until the time of
the early Crusades, the Jews were able to maintain legal autonomy within their own
communities. Jewish law was binding and they were permitted to follow their religious
worship and customs without persecution, as long as they did not attempt to convert
Christians to Judaism.Between 1099 and 1291, the Jews were again victimized by the
Christian Crusades, undertaken to bring Jerusalem under Christian control. Thereafter, the
Jews lived under the rulership of the Mamluks (a powerful military caste of Islamic faith)
until the early sixteenth century. Then, the Ottoman Empire ruled over Judea until its
destitution at the end of World War I. From 1918 until 1948, Great Britain occupied the area
and split up the land between an Arab state (present-day Jordan) and the Jewish state of
Israel (in its pre-1967 borders). The war between Israel and a coalition of its Arab
neighbors in 1967 (the so-called Six-Days War), led to the Israeli occupation of the Golan
Heights and the West Bank and established the present-day borders of Israel.Classical Anti-
SemitismAnti-Semitism is the hatred of the Jewish people. The term was coined in 1879 by a
German called William Marr, founder of the League for Anti-Semitism. Although the term is
relatively new, the facts it describes are ancient and well known. The first incidents of anti-
Semitism date back to the fifth century BC. Some of the reasons for persecution were the
military and economic objectives of the conquerors. Others were cultural, because the Jews
were often forced to live as part of a larger community with different customs and faith.
However, they did not adapt their customs (food, religious practice, Sabbath, etc.) and
refused to assimilate. Hence, they remained different, and this difference caused fear and
anger amongst the majority.Christian Anti-SemitismIt is crucial to remember that
Christianity evolved out of Judaism and that both religions share a lot of important
characteristics such as monotheism. Jesus was a Jew, and so were his first followers. The
major difference between them regards the question of whether or not Jesus Christ was the
Messiah. Also, it was decided early on that believers in Jesus had to follow only certain
Jewish laws and traditions, but not all of them. Hence, Christianity slowly established itself
as an autonomous religion with its own customs and beliefs different from Judaism. Thus,
the two religions slowly drifted apart. In AD 135, the religious leaders of the Jewish people
declared Kokhba to be the Messiah as he led a revolt against the Romans. The Christians,
however, refused to participate in the revolt (which ended unsuccessfully), because, for
them, Jesus had been the Messiah and hence there was no place for another to assume that
title. Many of the Christians were killed because of their refusal to participate. Finally, there
were also conflicts between Judaism and Christianity because of Roman politics. At the time

3. of Jesus’ life, Judaism was officially accepted as a religion, which had numerous advantages
for Jewish religious practice. Christians later sought to attain the same status for their
religion against the strict opposition of the Jews, who feared losing Roman support if they
were too closely affiliated with the other side. The Romans, of course, were happy to play
one side against the other in order to secure their control over the country.This situation
changed radically in the fourth century AD, when Christianity was declared the official
Roman faith by the Roman Emperor Constantine. From then on, the Christian church
became increasingly less tolerant toward the Jews, forcing many of them to make an official
choice between Judaism and Christianity. This lack of tolerance was promoted by some of
the writings of the church fathers who preached against the Jewish tradition. First and
foremost on their list was the accusation that the Jews had killed Jesus. The intolerance
grew over the centuries and burst into violence when Pope Urban II called for the
“ liberation” of the Holy Land from the “ infidels” in 1096. This date marks the beginning of
the first of nine Crusades that lasted until 1272. Why were the Crusades terrible news for
the Jews, many of whom no longer lived in the “ Holy Land,” but in the Diaspora? Because
on their way toward Jerusalem, the crusaders slew thousands and thousands of Jews.Jews in
Germany during the Time of the CrusadesThe Jews suffered tremendously during the time
of the Crusades. They were persecuted, exiled, tortured, and killed by the thousands by
zealous Christian knights, soldiers, and their sympathizers. During the Crusades there also
emerged a particular dress code for Jews, first initiated by Pope Innocent III at the Fourth
Lateran Council (1215) in Rome. The decree required that Jews wear some form of dress (a
style of hat, a cloak, or a veil) that would distinguish them from Christians. One of the most
common forms of distinguishing dress was the bell hat that came to be known as “ the
Jew’ s hat.” In the fifteenth century, for the first time Jews were required to wear a yellow
badge to distinguish them as Jews. This emblem, which is the precursor to the infamous
yellow Star of David the Jews were forced to wear in Nazi Germany, was first required by
the city of Augsburg (1434) and then later by nine other cities as well (1451).During the
course of the Crusades, the Judensau (Jewish Sow), one of the crudest and most widespread
of the anti-Semitic depictions of Jews, began to appear as architectural ornamentation on
churches (on the friezes and capitals and as gargoyles) and occasionally as architectural
sculpture on secular structures as well. Later, with the invention of the printing press, it also
appeared frequently in popular broadsheets and as a book illustration. Although the source
of the Judensau cannot be determined, the association of the Jew with a pig stems in part
from the Jewish abstinence from eating pork. The association is perhaps also tinged with
irony; among the Jews there was a collective cultural repulsion against the pig as a filthy
animal, while anti-Semitic Christians portrayed the Jews as dirty and repulsive.Jews also
suffered tremendously when the Inquisition began to spread during the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. By far the worst persecution of the Jews in Germany prior to the
Holocaust, however, resulted from the Black Death (the bubonic plague) that swept Europe
in 1348– 1349. As the death toll mounted and the epidemic persisted, new accusations
arose against the Jews. The Christian population claimed that fewer Jews were dying and
attributed the disease to Jewish poisoning of the wells. In 350 towns, Jews were massacred
and in 210 of these towns, every single Jew was killed. The Strasbourg city council gave the

4. orders to burn the 2,000 Jews who died there. This chronicle by the French Carmelite monk
Jean de Venette describes the fate of the Jews during the Black Death:Some said that this
pestilence was caused by infection of the air and waters, since there was at this time no
famine nor lack of food supplies, on the contrary great abundance. As a result of this theory
of infected water and air as the source of the plague, the Jews were suIDenly and violently
charged with infecting wells and water and corrupting the air. The whole world rose up
against them cruelly on this account. In Germany and other parts of the world where Jews
lived, they were massacred and slaughtered by Christians, and many thousands were
burned everywhere, indiscriminately. The unshaken, if fatuous, constancy of the men and
their wives was remarkable. For mothers hurled their children first into the fire that they
might not be baptized and then leaped in after them to burn with their husbands and
children. (Newhall, 50)This wave of persecution changed the structure of European Jewry
permanently. Those who were able to escape the carnage fled, often moving to Eastern
Europe. The Jewish population of Germany was severely reduced by the combined effect of
the plague and the massacres. On the other hand, numerous Jewish communities began
springing up throughout Poland, Lithuania, and Russia. Thus, German Jews formed the basis
for the growing Jewry of Eastern Europe.This emigration continued into the fifteenth
century, as the image of the Jew as the enemy of the Christian became more fixed in the
public mind. Flight was also at times a financial necessity, as the emperor retained the right
to pardon Jews, but at a cost of a third of their fortune. And as economic competition
increased in the German cities between the Jews and the burgher classes, the authorities
came under increased pressure to expel the Jews. In the course of the fifteenth century,
almost all the larger cities expelled their Jews, who for the most part took up residency in
minor territories near towns and villages.It should also be mentioned that Martin Luther
and members of the Protestant Reformation movement preached tolerance against the Jews
only for as long as they thought they could be “ changed” and converted to Christianity.
Once it became clear that, in most cases, this would not happen, Luther, too, turned anti-
Semitic and explicitly condoned the persecution of Jews.Modern Anti-SemitismThe major
difference between medieval and modern forms of anti-Semitism concerns their motifs,
which change from religious to racial. Anti-Semites now consider Jews to be an inferior race
rather than adherents of the “ wrong” faith. To this effect, racial theorists began to conflate
purely linguistic terms (such as “ Aryan” and “ Semitic” ) with race in order to provide
biological reasons for the alleged superiority of the white race throughout human history.A
point of connection between the two phases of anti-Semitism regards the alleged greed of
the Jewish people. Throughout the MiIDle Ages and into the beginning of modernity, usury
(i.e., the lending of money against interest) was denounced by the church fathers and many
Christian leaders as unethical. Moneylending was either frowned upon or explicitly
forbiIDen by law. However, no such prohibition existed in Judaism. And since the Jews were
also ostracized from many regular professions during the MiIDle Ages because of their faith,
they increasingly turned toward moneylending to support themselves. The cliché of the
“ money-grabbing” Jew extorting Christians remained popular until the twentieth century
and provided ample propaganda material for Hitler’ s anti-Semitism.In its secular form,
anti-Semitism spread throughout Europe during the Enlightenment and can be found in

5. France, Russia, and Germany. In France, the so-called Dreyfus affair from 1894 (which
involved the wrongful conviction of a young promising Jewish officer for treason) revealed
the extent of anti-Semitism in the French Third Republic. In Germany in 1897, there
suIDenly appeared the “ Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which later turned out to be
fabricated. These “ protocols” of the First World Zionist Congress (organized by Theodor
Herzl) allegedly documented the Jewish ambition to achieve world domination. Although
they were false, the “ protocols” served to mobilize anti-Jewish sentiments throughout
Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century.Roots of the Final SolutionIn Lesson 3, we
discussed the tremendous impact of the Reichstag fire that allowed Hitler to implement the
Enabling Act and the Gleichschaltung in the spring of 1933. Although these laws were
directed against other groups as well, the Jews were hit hardest by them. The Nazis
organized a national boycott of Jewish stores as early as April of 1933. One of the leaders of
the boycott, Julius Streicher, the editor of the viciously anti-Semitic newspaper Der
Stürmer (The Stormer) also began to reiterate the ancient charge of blood libel, according to
which Jews slaughter German children. About 400 specifically designed decrees and laws
were issued in order to discriminate against Jews, who were purged from all public
positions in the juridical, educational, medical, and administrative sectors. The percentage
of Jewish students admitted to German universities was severely limited, and the kosher
slaughter of animals—
a particular way of bleeding the animal to death—
was banned on April
21, 1933. The first public burning of books, many of them authored by German Jews, took
place on March 10, 1933 in Berlin. The first KZs (concentration camps) were also
established in 1933, the first one at Dachau close to Munich. The original purpose of these
camps had been to interrogate and terrorize political opponents of the regime. But they
were increasingly used as a training ground for special units of the SS, such as the SS Death
Heads, the SD (Sicherheitsdienst or Security Service of the SS), and the Gestapo (Geheime
Staatspolizei or Secret Police). These forces would later prove crucial for implementing the
Holocaust against the Jews.In September of 1935, the Nazis issued the Nuremberg Racial
Laws, which prohibited physical contact between Aryans and Jews. The law also limited
German citizenship to Aryans, thus stripping Jews of all basic civil rights and making them
subjects to, rather than citizens of, the German state. There were thirteen more laws passed
during the next eight years that continued to restrict the civil and human rights of Jews
more and more. A crucial component of the law was that it explicitly discounted Jewish
cultural assimilation as well as conversion to the Christian faith. According to the Nazis,
Jewishness was a biological (i.e., racial) fact that could not be changed, and Aryans had to
provide proof of not being half- or quarter-Jewish (i.e., not having a Jewish parent or
grandparent).Nonetheless, many assimilated Jews remained in Germany, partly because
they hoped that Nazism was short lived, and partly because they considered themselves
more German than Jewish. At the time of the Nuremberg laws, only about 75,000 Jews had
left Germany; 37,000 of those had actually left right away in 1933. In order to understand
why no more left right away, one must keep in mind how difficult it would be for anybody
just to leave their home and settle