Anti-Semitism

Antisemitism

"If the Anti-Semites want to hate,

let them hate, and let them all go to hell"

-David Ben-Gurion

Anti-Semitism in the Encarta dictionary is defined has a behavior discriminating against Jewish people that harm or discriminate against Jewish people. This definition does not even scrap the surface of what the word Anti-Semitism means to you if you are Jewish.

Anti-Semitism's major part was to give Jews a bad reputation of being subhuman and threatening the purity of the German master race. The Nazis also propagated false claims such as the supposed role of Jews in the "stab in the back," betrayal of Germany's Army that led the Versailles Treaty with its loss territory and large reparation payments.

In the postwar years, Germans suffered runaway inflation and massive unemployment. The National Socialist Workers (Nazi) Party was just one of the many racist groups that sprang up. Hitler soon became most effective anti-Jewish leader. His anti-Semitic blueprint was set out in the book Mein Kampf, and after he assumed power in the 1930's it became official policy. Although opposed to Christianity, Hitler used it in his antisemitic message. He wrote: "If... the Jew is victorious over the peoples of the world, his crown will be the funeral wreath of humanity and this planet will, as it did thousands of years ago, move through the ether devoid of men. Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the creator: By defining myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."

With writings like this and speeches with mass crowds Hitler gave, it is no wonder the majority of Europeans accepted Hitler's