Anti-semitism and prejudice has always followed Jews. In the folksong “National Brotherhood Week”, Tom Lehrer sings:Oh the Protestants hate the Catholics,And the Catholics hate the Protestants,And the Hindus hate the Moslems,And everybody hates the Jews. (1)Anti-Semitism was based not on the Jewish religion, but on what they considered the Jewish race. During the first half of the 20th century and particularly in the period between World War Iand World War II, anti-semitism became a dominant force in Europe, notably in Germany. This period of persecution and extermination of European Jews became known as Holocaust. Today’s question is, should we remember and learn the lessons of the Holocaust and pass them to a new generation?When Nazi regime came to power led by Hitler in Germany, in 1933, it immediately began to take systematic measures against Jews. According to Hitler, Germans were the Aryan race, and Jews polluted it. In his book Main Kampf Hitler wrote: “It shows with terrifying clarity that in every mingling of Aryan blood with that of lower people, the result was the end of the cultured people” (2). From 1933 to 1939, efforts were made by the Nazi people to eliminate Jews from economic life. Non Aryans were dismissed from civil service positions, and Jewish lawyers and doctors lost their Aryan clients lot of Jewish firms were purchased by German owners for much less then their full value. This process was called “Aryanization”.But much worse was to come. On November 1938, Crupenfhrer Heydrich gave the message to destroy all businesses, establishments and homes of Jews (3). That Night became known as Kristallnacht, or ”Night of Broken glass”. The survivor Lewis Scholoss remembers this night: “After they’d destroy our store windows, they came upstairs to the apartment where we live. The Nazi broke down our front door, destroyed our furniture, and threw our china o...
