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  • The Nazis began their pursuit of the Jews and looking for a solution to their problem

  • with the Jews, what they called "The Jewish Question", from the moment they came to power

  • in 1933. They looked for ways to separate the Jews

  • from German Society, and the economy and politics, and civil society and culture and in everything.

  • They boycotted the Jews, passed laws against the Jews, disenfranchised the Jews, kicked

  • the Jews out of citizenship, and tried to force the Jews to immigrate from the Third

  • Reich, as a way of relieving Germany of this threat that the Nazis imagined.

  • The climax of all that, of the Nazi treatment of the Jews, came in November 1938, with the

  • violent, nationally organized "Kristallnacht Program", in which thousands of Jewish stores

  • were destroyed, homes were destroyed, more than 1,500 synagogues were burned to the ground,

  • more than 100 Jews were murdered, 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and taken to concentration

  • camps and to prison. And this pressure on the Jews to leave, to be separated from society,

  • continued and pushed the Jews - indeed, many were leaving as time went on, looking for

  • places to go. In the course of the pre-war years 1933 to September 1939, approximately

  • half of the German Jews actually left Germany, some 250,000. Unfortunately for many of them,

  • they ended up going to neighboring countries and being caught. Those who managed to get

  • further away of course ended up saving their lives, although they didn't exactly know that

  • that was the issue when they left.

The Nazis began their pursuit of the Jews and looking for a solution to their problem

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