Holocaust

[calbert at pop.tiac.net]

> The average German's anti-Semitism was based on stereotyped notions of
> the Jews' socio-economic status and conduct, wasn't it? Rumours of
> unfair and exclusive business practices, higher-priced and poorer
> quality merchandise for Gentiles, profits sent out of the country etc.

now this seems lacking in context. jews were NOT readily assimilated 
into the greater german culture. For centuries they had been subject 
to laws which restricted not only their livelyhoods, but also their 
mobility and where they could live. Until quite late in the 19th 
cent. jews were obliged to live in ghettoes surrounding major cities, 
in order to function outside they had to purchase titles such as 
court jews - as long as they served the interests of the court in 
question. The rumors to which you refer are simply traditional 
charicatures employed by those in power to divert the attentions of 
their irritated constituents, not unlike the indonesian riots against 
ethnic chinese last year.


> The religious and philosophical justifications devised by the Nazi
> intelligentsia were secondary, and subsequent(?) to the economic
> perception. It was the Depression, more devastating in Germany than
> anywhere else, which tipped the scales against the Jews in the eyes of
> the German public.

The german public had been conditioned for centuries. There is the 
not insignificant irony of jews being condemned for their financial 
acumen, as if every jewish family excluded from the traditional 
trades became a world banker. This notion persists, my otherwise 
insightful brasilian wife insists that all jews in her native country 
are rich, after all she saw a lot of jews in the ritzy residential 
quarters of her home town. I have suggested, to little avail, that 
given their eccentric mode of dress, that jews are simply more 
noticeable.

Crank up the heat a little and suddenly stereotypes take on a new 
significance.