[Jade21050]

I teach in a non-Jewish community in the Midwest. We study The Diary of Anne Frank and the Holocaust each year. The students always ask these three questions: 1) How did the Nazis know who was Jewish and who wasn't? 2) Why didn't the Jews pretend to not be Jewish; why didn't they just not wear the star? 3) Is being Jewish a race or a religion? Please help. I never feel I answer these questions adequately.

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Name : Jade21050, Gender : F, Religion : Christian, City : Midwest, State : NA Country : United States, Occupation : Teacher, 

[Alex J.]

The Nazis paid large rewards, in the form of money, food stamps, etc., to anyone who would say who was Jewish and who was not. The Nazis had access to synagogue membership records and required you to fill out your religion on nearly every government form, including your taxes, passport, censuses, etc.

Judaism is a religion, yet, due to centuries of inbreeding, there are certain characteristics of Jews that may be classified as racial, such as the Jewish nose. Another example would be the genetic disease carried by Ashkenazic Jews: Tay Sachs.

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Name : Alex J., Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Jewish, Age : 15, City : Elkins Park, State : PA Country : United States, Occupation : High school student, Education level : Less than High School Diploma, Social class : Upper middle class, 

[Jesse N.]

To answer the specific questions:

The Nazis made it a national policy to determine the origin of every person in their control and to classify them as appropriate. They had specific guidelines they used for classification, and these were generally out of the hands of the individual. So, the government investigated everybody and selected those who failed to meet the criteria for liquidation. Once classified, there was nothing a person could do to officially change that designation. A person might not wear the star, but it wouldn't matter if his papers stated he was a Jew. Some (like Anne Frank) hid, but for many this was unsuccessful, and they were captured. Incidentally, one way they checked for Jews in hiding was to look for a circumcision; a male in Germany who had been circumcised was 99.9 percent likely to be a Jew.

I don't have any doubt in my mind that Judaism is a religion.

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Name : Jesse N., Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Jewish, Age : 40, City : Herzliya, State : NA Country : Israel, Occupation : Engineer, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Upper middle class, 

[Lee22842]

My answers:

1) The Nazis (and the German governments before them) had records of each individual's birth and information, including religion and the religions of their grandparents. All someone needed to be considered Jewish was one grandparent born of one Jewish parent. The amount you practiced or believed was unimportant, as was whether you had been raised a Christian.

2) They put the Jews in ghettos - they thus knew who was supposed to be wearing stars.

3) Judaism is a religion. There are German Jews, Black Jews and Spanish Jews, just as there are German Christians, Black Christians and Spanish Christians. Their "race" is white, Latino or black and their religion is Jewish. 99.999 percent of Jews consider their race to be synonomous with the color of their skin.

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Name : Lee22842, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Episcopalian, City : San Fransisco, State : CA Country : United States, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Upper middle class, 

[Gregg S.]

1) Jewish identity, according to Nazi law, was based on blood. They had "Councils of Racial Purity" that investigated "dubious" claims of Aryanism. What other respondents have left out is that the Nazis used baptismal records to research Jewish ancestry. There was actually quite a large industry that arose to assist in "proving" racial purity.

2) Jews could not just hide or not wear the star, because their birth records indicated their religion/ethnicity. What most Americans don't understand is that religion and ethnicity in Europe has always been corporeal rather than individual. For example, to this day in Germany, people pay a "religion" tax, which goes to the state. The tax is then proportionately divided among the country's churches according to the number of adherents to each "confession." Religion is thus considered a legitimate question in European censuses.

3. It's not so simple that Jewishness is simply a religion. Ashkenazic Jews, which is what most American Jews are, are caucasian and white. Many - almost half - are ligh- skinned and have blue, gray or green eyes and light brown/blond hair. But just because they are not a distinct race does not mean they are not a distinct nationality. Germans, Frenchmen, Englishmen and Irishmen are all white and of the same race, but they are different from each other to the extent that what is culturally distinctive about each group is a result of language, religion, geographical situation - in other words, unique shared experiences. More than 90 percent of the Jews in America come from central and eastern Europe, where they were culturally segregated for centuries, where they spoke a distinct language (Yiddish), where they practiced a distinct religion and where they evolved a separate culture. As a result, you have many Jews who are not religious but who, nevertheless, consider themselves Jewish.

With the establishment of Israel and the supplanting of a Jewish identity with an Israeli one, and with the hitherto unimaginable acceptance of Jews in the West since 1945, it's likely that a distinct Jewish culture that is recognizably Jewish-American and epitomized and exaggerated by such personalities as the Marx Brothers, Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, the Three Stooges and, more recently, Jerry Seinfeld, Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg and many more - it's likely this identity will disappear and Judaism will once again become a religion only.

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Name : Gregg S., Gender : M, Religion : Jewish, City : Boston, State : MA Country : United States, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

[Tomas S.]

1) The government did not need to prove anything. You needed to prove you were not of Jewish ancestry. The least you needed was to have documented that none of your grandparents was Jewish (in order to keep your job, own a business and not eventually get sent to a concentration camp). More documentation was required in some cases, e.g. to own a farm you had to prove you had no Jewish ancestors within the last 200 years. The ancestors' religion was documented in the church books (up to the 19th century) and later in the person's register of the town. By the way, church affiliation is registered the same way today: If I'd want to leave the Lutheran church, I'd go to city hall, not to the pastor. That's because registered church affiliation determines if you pay church tax (some 8 percent on top of income tax), and to whom. This is generally not considered an invasion of privacy, as church membership is thought of as a thing of public life.

How Jews in the occupied countries were singled out I'm not so sure. It was probably a combination of public/church records, and in Eastern Europe possibly also of living in a Jewish ghetto.

2) It probably wasn't worth the risk of being caught in a routine ID check and being sent to a concentration camp sooner rather than later.

3) The issue is perhaps confused by the fact that Judaism does not seek to make converts, unlike the other major religions. The Nazis definitely thought in terms of race (it was no help if your parents had converted to Christianity). It was mostly the same for pre-Nazi anti-Semitism. Nowadays in Germany, the term "Jewish race" is only used by neo-Nazis (generally the very concept of race is considered to be racist. This website's response form with an optional field "Race" would definitely be considered racist in a German context).

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Name : Tomas S., Gender : M, Age : 37, City : Tübingen, State : NA Country : Germany, Occupation : electrical engineer, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

[Rhiannon]

I think what lots of non-Jews don't get is that "Jewish" is a culture. It's a religion, of course, and religion is an important part of a culture. Jewish culture has a rich history of traditions and customs: Language (Yiddish and Hebrew), music, food, art, stories, superstitions, cultural values.

For years, Jews across Eastern Europe had much more in common with the Jews who lived in other Jewish towns (or "shtetls") for miles around than they did with their Gentile neighbors, many of whom they barely interacted with. When people ask me what my ethnicity or cultural background is, I tell them I'm Jewish. I certainly don't tell them I'm "Bessarabian," even though my grandparents came from Bessarabia, because the culture they passed on to me was Jewish culture, not Bessarabian. (Note: It's interesting that in the Y? Forum demographic form, "Jewish" is one of the options under "Religion." It's not that simple.)

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Name : Rhiannon, Gender : F, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Jewish, Age : 28, City : Minneapolis, State : MN Country : United States, Occupation : Media studies graduate student, 

[Sara]

In response to the first two questions, I think the rise of the Third Reich was, initially, a very subtle thing. Many Jewish people were so attuned to the history of segregation and discrimination, that, in a way, I wonder if it was hard to fathom it turning into concentration camps and crematoriums (set me straight if I have my head up my butt, please). There are lots of theories, and the only way around them is to actually find multiple accounts from people who lived through it, like Elie Wiesel's 'Night' trilogy. In response to your second questions, anthropologically speaking there is only ONE race, the human race. Judaism is a religion, certainly. However, it is also an established culture; many non-observant Jews still exhibit cultural tendencies, and still feel a sense of community with other Jewish people. Another book you might want to look at is 'Numbering Our Days' by Barbara Meyerhoff.

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Name : Sara, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : 28, City : Tacoma, State : WA Country : United States, Occupation : na, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Lower class, 

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