Welcome,
This website is designed to show how the Nazis took anti-Semitism to an unprecedented level of terror and violence. Although the extermination camps, especially Auschwitz-Birkenau, are typically the focal point of the Holocaust, this website focuses more attention on the anti-Semitic acts that took place prior to the Final Solution. It discusses the history of anti-Semitism, it’s development over time, and some examples of Nazi anti-Semitism including legislation, ghetto formation, Kristallnacht, and the concentration camps. These topics are important because the Nazis did not begin using extermination camps right away. Jews were victims of isolation, humiliation, starvation, slave labor, and several other catastrophes for many years before complete annihilation was decided. Families were torn apart, properties were destroyed, and innocent people were treated like vermin. Teachers, lawyers, doctors, musicians, and the neighbors next door were victimized for only one reason: they were Jews.
Descriptions of the anti-Semitic policies and events discussed on this website are accompanied by personal accounts of Jewish men and women who experienced them. Survivors of the Holocaust provided some of the testimonies while others are taken from letters, diary entries, and various documents that were preserved. Yad Vashem, the world center for documentation, research, education and commemoration of the Holocaust, provided a majority of the sources.
Created by Charles Stephenson
Descriptions of the anti-Semitic policies and events discussed on this website are accompanied by personal accounts of Jewish men and women who experienced them. Survivors of the Holocaust provided some of the testimonies while others are taken from letters, diary entries, and various documents that were preserved. Yad Vashem, the world center for documentation, research, education and commemoration of the Holocaust, provided a majority of the sources.
Created by Charles Stephenson