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Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses the Holocaust, antisemitism, and antisemitic violence.

Early non-Jewish civilizations distrusted the minority Jewish religion, and the newly converted Christian rulers of the Roman Empire sought to validate Christianity as the successor of Judaism. They blamed Jewish people for the death of Christ. Rome and subsequent European nations portrayed Jewish people as demonic and responsible for tragedies like the Bubonic Plague, leading to mass killings called pogroms and restricted legal rights. The false and harmful stereotypes of the greedy Jew and the Jewish Illuminati emerged because moneylending was one of the few trades open to them, and they were banned from government positions except as project financiers.

The years leading up to World War II (1945-1948) as Adolf Hitler, German Chancellor, rose to power marked an increase in antisemitism. Though antisemitism has much earlier roots, Hitler was motivated by a desire to “purify” the human race, which meant one that was purely German and excluded specific groups of people, including those of Jewish heritage, Romani people, and gay people. Hitler spread his ideology by systematic propaganda, which blamed Jews in particular for many atrocities, including Germany’s downfall in World War I. Hitler set about murdering these individuals gradually, first by establishing restrictions on Jews in Germany. These restrictions consisted of unjust laws, such as those that limited Jewish businesses and barred Jews from governmental positions. Control of Jewish citizens grew increasingly harsh, and ultimately, Jews were relegated to ghettos—segregated neighborhoods where Jews were forced to live so that their everyday movements could be tightly controlled and regulated. As World War II got underway with Hitler’s invasion of nearby Poland, Jews were relocated from ghettos to “work camps.” Auschwitz, the largest of the concentration camps, was located in Oświęcim, Poland. Though prisoners were forced to work, they were prisoners, and the camps were, in truth, death camps in which Jews were deliberately starved to death. Those who “disobeyed” or challenged guards were hanged, shot, or murdered by other means. Importantly, a key method by which large numbers of victims were murdered simultaneously was via lethal gas. Camps contained crematoriums by which the bodies of the deceased were subsequently cremated.

Six million Jews and five million other individuals (including one million children) were murdered during the Holocaust (History.com Editors. “The Holocaust.” History.com. 14 Oct. 2009).