Nuremberg Laws 03/28

Sickening to read Hitler’s speech on the Nuremberg Laws. An extract of the speech reveals how he thought that the Jewish people were intolerable and causing the German people challenges. He said. “it may be possible still to create a level ground on which the German people may find a tolerable relation towards the Jewish people.” This goes to show how deeply engrained the fascist mentality had become, and how deeply this feeling of “us” against the “other” was at the core of Hitler’s campaign. We see hints of this today with our current President, and his views on Mexican immigrants to the United States…


Reading the actual laws were disturbing. They forbid Jews and Germans from marrying one another and even offered punishments of hard labour to those who broke these rules. What’s heartbreaking is that most German people blindly followed the rules, because they assumed their leader had their best interest. These laws also threatened sterilization to anyone who suffered from mental illness, including things like depression and deafness. Made me feel odd to realize that I would have been among the first to go as someone who is neither white, nor blonde hair and who suffers from chronic depression! This gave me a lot of perspective on the way the Jewish people were treated. 

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