How were the Jews identified? - Memory makes us free

How were the Jews identified?

On 15 September 1935 in Nuremberg there were all the conditions for implementing the most important anti-Semitic measures:

  • A law to protect the purity of blood and German honour which prohibited both marriages and sexual relations between Jews and Germans.
  • The Reich Citizenship law in which Jews were called “subjects”.

On November 14, 1935, the Nazis defined “Jew”:

  • Whoever had two names and had belonged to the Jewish community since September 15, 1935.
  • Everyone who had been married to a Jew since September 15, 1935
  • Who was born from an extramarital marriage or affair with a Jew since September 15, 1935.

These were just some of the “rules” that people followed to identify Jewish people. The Nazis believed that the Jews were not the only ones to pollute the Aryan race but also the Sinti and Romanies (gypsies), homosexuals, the sick, the disabled, the political dissidents… in general all the “different” people!

The Nazis used a specific process to deport the Jews, it was based on submission and can be summarized in the following points:

  • SEARCH AND EXCLUSION
    Once the Nazis identified these people, they were looked for and captured. These people were identified in public and subsequently excluded and marginalised from society.
  • ANTI-SEMITIC PROPAGANDA
    Nazi propaganda, therefore, portrayed the excluded groups as parasites, a source of evil and distortion in the world. This propaganda was spread by all the media: public events and advertising messages.
  • CONTROL OF CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS
    Control of cultural institutions gave the Nazis another opportunity to disseminate anti-Semitic propaganda. In 1937 in Munich there was an exhibition: “the wandering Jew”, where Jews were painted as rats and carriers of diseases; they had to be suppressed because they were harmful to German society.
  • PROPAGATE THE GENOCIDE
    Most of the German population accepted Jewish discrimination. All the rules adopted against them, created an atmosphere of distrust/mistrust and explicit violence. Vilifying the Jews served to prepare the German population for deportations and for what became genocide.

With the collaboration of Allied governments and American companies such as IBM, the Nazis managed to compile endless “death lists”.

SOURCES:

Memory makes us Free - ISIS Europa