Background Information

Nationalism  regarded as a condition of loyalty to one's own nation and its interests

Mein Kampf (My Struggle)  Hitler’s political philosophy  Written while in prison  1923  Anti-Semitism – Jewish scapegoats  German expansion – blames the Treaty of Versailles for lost land  Critics- never taken seriously  Warnings signs were overlooked

July 14, 1933  Creation of the Nazi Party  Swastika

The Third Reich  Translation – Third Empire  "Thousand Year" Empire

Nuremberg Laws  Laws endorsed by the Nazi Party  Nuremberg, Germany in 1933 and 1935  Severe restrictions on German Jews  Aryan German race  Holocaust  The undesirable / sub-human

Yellow Star of David  Six pointed star  Jewish religious symbol  Identification

Kristallnacht  November 10, 1938  Widespread violence  “Night of broken glass”

Early Acts of Discrimination against Jews in Germany  Book burnings  Boycott of Jewish owned businesses  Professors expelled from universities  April 7, 1933 Jews barred from German civil service.  September 15, 1935 Nuremberg Laws ended German citizenship for Jews.  September 21, 1935 Jewish doctors forced to resign from private hospitals by Nuremberg Laws.  November 16, 1937 Jews could obtain passports for travel outside of Germany only in special cases.  July 22, 1938 Effective January 1, 1939 in Germany, all Jews forced to carry special identification cards.  November 15, 1938 German schools expelled all Jews.  November 28, 1939 German Jews restricted by curfew

Warsaw Ghetto  Largest Jewish ghetto during WWII  Warsaw, Poland  Population: estimated from 450,000 to 71,000