Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism is the common name for anti-Jewish sentiments. 
During Hitler’s rule, anti-Semitism was implemented in its most grotesque form. The Nazis used anti-Semitism to carry out the Endlösung – the ‘Final Solution of the Jewish Question’. Through persecution and later extermination of the European Jews, the Nazis hoped to solve the ‘Jewish problem’ once and for all – strongly backed by anti-Semites in the Balkans, the Soviet Union and other eastern European countries.

But anti-Semitism is neither invented in Germany or a specifically German phenomenon. Through centuries, Jews were a persecuted people.  During the Middle Ages, such actions often took the form of pure mass murder. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Jews fell victim to frequent pogroms in Eastern Europe. But with the Nazi persecution in the 1930’s and 1940’s, Jews all over German-controlled Europe were systematically killed. More than 6 million were murdered.