75th: Star

From the DW:

"The star of ostracism and death"

Seventy-five years ago, the Nazis forced Jews in Germany to wear a yellow badge, which meant they were excluded from society. The identification symbol was a precursor to the Holocaust.  The Star of David did not originally denote stigmatization, nor was the six-pointed star an exclusively Jewish symbol in the past. Nonetheless, the star has been associated with the Holocaust since the Nazi era in Germany. After the Nuremberg Race Laws were passed in 1935, Jews faced increasing social exclusion. The laws had meticulously defined who was Jewish, of mixed race or deemed as Jewish according to German laws. Years later, most of these people – not all of them – had to wear a yellow badge. Even before the war, Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Reich Main Security Office, had thought about how one could make Germany's enemies within visible to the world. Shortly after the Kristallnacht in November 1938 when synagogues were set on fire and Jewish businesses were destroyed, Heydrich wrote, "Whoever is Jewish according to the Nuremberg Laws will have to wear a certain insignia." It made it easier for the Nazis to find Jews and deport them to concentration camps – and not only in Germany. Right at the beginning of the war in September 1939, Jews living in occupied Poland were forced to wear a white armband with a blue star on it. As more and more countries were occupied by Germany, the Nazis imposed mandatory ID badges on the Jewish population. Before the war, the regime was hesitant about labeling. In 1937, even Hitler revealed his calculated reluctance when he told functionaries of the NSDAP, the Nazi party: "The problem with the identification has been considered continually for two or three years and it will be implemented.... [T]hen you have to have the right sense to know, 'What can I still do, what can I not do?'" He still presented himself as willing to compromise as he apparently feared fierce reactions from abroad. But all inhibitions were abandoned at the beginning of the war. In 1941, the Reich Minister of Propaganda, Josef Goebbels, reminded Hitler about identification for the Jews again and he was given permission in mid-August. On September 1, 1941, the police regulation came into effect. All the specifications were worked out. "The palm-sized, black, six-pointed star made of yellow fabric with the black inscription 'Jew' is to be placed visibly on the left chest side of the garment." This regulation, based on the Nuremburg Laws, was applied to all Jewish citizens after six years of age. From this point on, it was forbidden for Jews to appear in public without a yellow badge. Anyone who tried to hide the star - with a scarf, for example - was harshly penalized by the Gestapo, who monitored the visibility of the badge. The victims despaired. Author and specialist for Romance languages, Victor Klemperer, came from a Jewish family but he had already converted to Protestantism before World War I. In 1935, Klemperer lost his professorship in Dresden and was forced to wear a star. In his diaries, which later became famous, he wrote, "Yesterday, when Eva sewed on the Jewish star, I was taken by an insane fit of desperation. Eva was also at her wits' end. I feel shattered, I cannot find composure." During 2013 at a commemorative ceremony in German parliament, Holocaust survivor Inge Deutschkron recalled, "The majority of Germans I met in the streets looked away when they noticed the star, or they looked right through me, the marked one, or just turned around…[W]ithout doubt, the star created a discriminatory isolation for us." Jews were isolated, discriminated against and controlled. The identification measure was only a precursor to what the Nazis called the "final solution" of the Jewish question, meaning extermination. Apart from wearing a badge, Jews were not allowed to leave their residential district without police permission. The perfect framework had been put in place for the Holocaust. It was no coincidence that deportations to the extermination camps began only a month later, in October 1941. Victor Klemperer and Inge survived, but millions of others did not.

^ It is 75 years since the Nazis forced the Jews in Germany to wear the "Star of David." As the article states the Jews in German-occupied Poland had to wear a white armband with the Jewish Star on it in 1939. The Nazis knew that the majority of Jews in Germany and Western Europe were more assimilated than those in Eastern Europe and that it would be harder for Germans to discriminate against people when they couldn't tell right away who was Jewish and who wasn't. The fact that the majority of Germans did little to show any support or sympathy to the Jews forced to wear the Star in September 1941 shows how deep Nazi ideology was in regular German society. Of course if you ask any German who was an adult during the War they "knew and saw nothing" like the "See no evil, Speak no evil, Hear no evil" saying. I remember when I lived in Germany and it was the 50th anniversary of the end of World War 2. Of course there was a lot written and spoken  about the anniversary in all the media catered to the American soldiers and their families - - it was because of that War that we had to be in Germany in the first place. I saw little mentioned in the German media about it and I lived on the German economy and not US housing so was more exposed than most Americans. I did notice that there were more flowers placed on the memorial to the German dead in the cemetary near my house. My friends (Americans) and I would go in right after someone placed the flowers on the monument and take them and put them on the closest grave. We didn't like the idea of people honoring anything to do with Nazi Germany. There is another story I remember from my time living in Germany (although I don't remember what anniversary, if any, it was for) but there was a man walking around with a very large yellow "Star of David" on his coat. I was on a German tram going into the center of the city and thought it was a pretty cool and bold statement to make. All of the Germans on the tram as well as those walking in the square near the man "looked" away  and said nothing. It is the German go-to even for those that weren't alive and had nothing to do with the War. The Nazis tried to murder all the Jews and the Germans have tried ever since to forget their role in it, but its anniversaries like today's that bring the horror back. ^

http://www.dw.com/en/the-star-of-ostracism-and-death/a-19509598