The Spiritual Triumph of Wladyslaw Szpilman: Resistance in the Face of Tragedy
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Nuremberg Laws
"The Nuremberg Law for the Protection of Blood and German Honor." 1935 -US Holocaust Memorial Museum
Through propaganda, Nazis exploited a longstanding religious prejudice that Jews were an inferior race and used them as a scapegoat for Germany’s economic collapse.
In September 1935, the Nuremberg Laws were passed. The Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor embodied the racial theories underpinning Nazi’s ideology.
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"The only way to deal with the problem which remains open is that of legislative action. The German Government is in this controlled by the thought that through a single secular solution it may be possible still to create a level ground on which the German people may find a tolerable relation towards the Jewish people. Should this hope not be fulfilled and the Jewish agitation both within Germany and in the international sphere should continue, then the position must be examined afresh." |
The Reich Citizenship Law defined who was and wasn’t an Aryan or Jew.
"The Poles: A thin Germanic layer, underneath frightful material. The Jews, the most appalling people one can imagine. The towns thick with dirt. He’s [Hitler] learned a lot in these past weeks. Above all, if Poland had gone on ruling the old German parts for a few more decades everything would have become lice-ridden and decayed. What was needed now was a determined and masterful hand to rule." |
"Behind all three laws there stands the National-Socialist Party and with it and supporting it stands the German nation." |
"Section 1
Marriages between Jews and citizens of German or kindred blood are forbidden. Marriages concluded in defiance of this law are void, even if, for the purpose of evading this law, they were concluded abroad.
Proceedings for annulment may be initiated only by the Public Prosecutor.
Section 2
The laws deprived Jews of German citizenship and forbade marriage or sexual relations between Jews and “citizens of German or cognate blood.” Supplementary decrees defined a Jew as a person with at least one Jewish grandparent and declared that Jews could not vote or hold public office."
-The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, 1935
"There is as much agonising uncertainty about the meaning of the Nuremberg laws as there was about the status of the Jew before these laws existed. The hunt of the Jew has not been called off; the beast has only been declared fair game for all, and the hunt has been made a legal national sport.” |
The Nuremberg Laws laid the foundation for future anti-semitic measures. Jews faced persecution not for their beliefs, but for their genealogy. These laws were applicable in Nazi-occupied Europe.