| Description |
The presence of Jews in Germany had always been a political as well as social issue. Jews had been made the scapegoat before during times of economic or political hardships. What shocked the Jews, and German Jews in particular, about World War II and the Holocaust was the actual magnitude of Hitler's final solution. Such a persecution, carried out with modern efficiency, had never happened before to the Jews in Europe. Jews had in their history often been banished from a country, merely to go on to another which would accept them. This type of persecution continued even into the beginning of Hitler's Third Reich. Two-thirds of the German Jews had left the country by 1939. Unfortunately for many of these Jews they had not seen what was coming and had remained on the Continent only to be later caught by the Nazis and deported to the concentration camps. Because the Holocaust had no precedent in modem history, the reaction of the Jewish community in West Germany after World War II consisted of varied responses ranging from attitudes of survival to those of absolute despair. Above all, though, Jewish survivors were plagued by guilt following the war. This sense of guilt, even more than the anger, would shape the Jews' outlook in Germany for several generations. |
