In the 1930s, following the loss of WWI and the Great Depression, Germany was in turmoil. Adolf Hitler promised hope to the nation. Jews were gradually excluded from German society as part of the Nazi campaign to make Germany Judenrein (free of Jews).
Members of Hitler’s Storm Troopers block the entrance to a Jewish-owned shop as part of the April 1933 boycott organised by the Nazi party soon after it took power. One sign reads: ‘Germans, defend yourselves; buy only at German shops!’
Source: U.S. Memorial Holocaust Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration
Devastation of a Jewish-owned shop during Kristallnacht, November 1938.
Source: JHC
Item from the display
German passport
Vienna, Germany, 1938
This passport, belonging to Ida Reinisch from Vienna, was stamped with a ‘J’ for Jude (Jew) in 1938. All Jewish women also had the name ‘Sara’ inserted in their passports, while Jewish males had the name ‘Israel’ added.
Source: JHC, courtesy of Ida Reinisch