The Boycott of Jewish Businesses

1. The Boycott of Jewish Businesses • 1933, about 500,000 Jews lived in Germany • Jews held important positions in government and taught in Germany's great universities. • Nazis carried out the first nationwide, planned action against Jews: boycott their businesses on April 1, 1933 • Signs were posted saying “Don't Buy from Jews” and “The Jews Are Our Misfortune.” • boycott was not very successful and lasted just a day • A week later, the government passed a law restricting employment in the civil service to “Aryans.” • Jewish government workers, including teachers in public schools and universities were fired

2. The Nuremberg Race Laws • 1935: Nazis announced new laws  • These laws included German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of “German or related blood,” and they were deprived of many political rights. • Anyone who had three or four Jewish grandparents was defined as a Jew • Jews were required to carry identity cards • Jews had to change their middle names if they did not possess recognizably "Jewish" first names 

4. The “Night of Broken Glass” On the night of Nov. 9, 1938, violence against the Jews broke out across the Reich. It appeared to be set off by the Germans’ anger over the assassination of a German official in Paris at the hands of a Jewish teen. In two days, 250 synagogues were burned, over 7,000 Jewish businesses were trashed and looted, dozens of Jewish people were killed. The morning after the pogroms 30,000 German Jewish men were arrested for the “crime” of being Jewish and were sent to concentration camps where they perished. After that night, many Jews committed suicide or tried to leave.

5. The Evian Conference Between 1933 and 1941, the Nazis aimed to make Germany cleansed of Jews by making life so difficult for them that they would be forced to leave the country. By 1938, about 150, 000 Jews had fled the country. Many Jews were unable to find countries to take them in. In the summer of 1938, delegates from 32 countries met at the French Resort of Evian. The German government stated how “astounding” it was that the foreign countries criticized Germany for the way the Jews were treated when those countries in fact wouldn’t take them in.

6. Voyage of the St. Louis In May 1939, 937 passengers, most Jewish refugees, left Hamburg, Germany, en route to Cuba. Most of them planned eventually to emigrate to the United States and were on the waiting list for admission After the ship left the Havana harbor, it sailed so close to the Florida coast that the passengers could see the lights of Miami. The captain appealed for help, but in vain. US Coast Guard ships patrolled the waters to make sure that no one jumped to freedom and did not allow the ship to dock in the US The St. Louis turned back to Europe. SATURDAY, MAY 13, 1939937 JEWISH REFUGEES FLEE NAZI GERMANY AND SAIL FOR HAVANA, CUBA MAY 27, 1939CUBAN PRESIDENT DENIES ENTRY FOR REFUGEES

7. Locating the Victims • In 1939, the German government conducted a census of all persons living in Germany. Census takers recorded each person's age, sex, residence, profession, religion, and marital status, and for the first time, they also listed the person's race as traced through his or her grandparents. This information was later punched into coded cards by thousands of clerks. • The cards were sorted and counted by the Hollerith machine, an early version of the modern computer. The Hollerith was invented in 1884 by a German-American engineer, Herman Hollerith. • The information from the 1939 census helped Nazi official Adolf Eichmann to create the Jewish Registry, containing detailed information on all Jews living in Germany. • APRIL 7, 1933JEWS ARE IDENTIFIED AND REMOVED FROM GOVERNMENT POSTS • AUGUST 17, 1938JEWS REQUIRED TO ASSUME "JEWISH" NAME • SEPTEMBER 19, 1941BADGE IDENTIFYING JEWS INTRODUCED IN GERMANY