Hitler Stereotypes

Women are known traditionally to play a certain role in the communities before they had rights. Their responsibilities were different from men and they were known to take care of families and do tasks like, cleaning, cooking, and taking care of children. Here, during the rise of Hitler the experience women lived through shifted. The traditional stereotype women were portrayed as shifted. Women are treated and expected to play a certain role in providing and ensuring safety of the family. This shift is one of the first times we see women have different roles in history, and this is caused by the fact they are treated differently. In Germany during the rise of Hitler, Jewish women are treated differently than Jewish men. In order to cope with
the situations Jews were facing, Jewish men and women responded to Nazi persecution by shifting the role women play in society, making it necessary that they take on new jobs, try to ensure the safety and protection of their families, and provide for society in bigger ways.
Women, before having rights, were known to play a certain role in households and communities.
This shift during the rise of Hitler is one of the first time we see women have different rights, and this is caused by the fact they are treated unequally. The traditional stereotype women were portrayed shifted. Pre-war roles and responsibilities of men and women differed greatly. Before the war Jewish men and women in both Eastern and Western Europe lived in gender-specific worlds which allowed them different spheres of knowledge, expertise, social networks and opportunities that they faced the Nazi onslaught. Most Jews believed the Nazis would treat men and women differently, and because they assumed only men were in real danger, they devised gender-specific strategies to protect and save their men in their plans for migration, hiding and escape. Even though they planned eventually to kill all Jews, especially in the early years, during the rise of Hitler in the war the Nazis issued different regulations and work requirements for men and women that show distinctive opportunities and diverse constraints on the two genders. In order to cope with the situations they were facing, Jewish men and women responded to Nazi persecution by shifting the role women play in society. This is why the role women play during the rise of Hitler
shifted.
Women provide for communities for the first time after men get kicked out of work and typical responsibilities, leaving women no choice but to take on male responsibility. In 1933, a bill was passed to keep Jewish people out of German state jobs, such as prosecutors, judges, lawyers, doctors working for the national health plan in Germany, etc. The only way Jewish men in these positions could keep their jobs was if they had served in World War I, or had been in that job before 1914. As a result, millions of men lost their jobs. The unemployment rate began to rise in the Jewish male population, and it was becoming harder for them to find work during the rise of Hitler. This was exacerbated after Kristallnacht. This is the day when the Nazi soldiers were encouraged to burn down Jewish stores, businesses, religious centers, or anything officiated with the Jewish race. This is the first time in history when a power of authority is insisting that the army burn attack a certain race and create disasters within the Jewish communities. After all the stores are vandalized and burned the Jewish men are not able to go back to work. In order for a household to retain its strength and survive they needed money. Jewish women, many who had never left the house for outside employment before in their lives, now had to go out and get a job to help keep the basic needs of their families sustained. This shift is a big turning point in the lives of women during the rise of Hitler. Women have never been known to be in the work force. Now, as more men lose their jobs women are needed to sustain society. For example, women needed to go and work in factories and take on lost jobs that men use to do. Marion Kaplan calls a "gender role reversal" among the Jewish women. Jewish women were now the family providers, a predominantly masculine role, in middle-class German society during the 1930s. Although, for those women working outside the home, a double burden was created. Working outside the home created the responsibility of running the household, comforting the children, shopping for food, and basic housework. This left many women with a lot of stress and very little time to themselves, because they spent more their time providing for the community and their household.
Considering Natzis treat women differently than men this shifts the role women play, making it crucial they take on the responsibility of ensuring their family safety and protection. Women would not be treated as poorly by the Natzi soliders, so they use this to their benefit. They would not be beat and take women away. Although, this positions the women to having to figure out long term plans for their husbands and families, which is something they did not need to do in the past. After so many men lost their jobs and women were put to work, the Nazis take the men away. Then, women must also learn how to physically protect their families, like men use to do. German soldiers did not go for women, because of traditional gender norms. In the soldier's mind women were not capable of the hard manual labor and concentration camps, although this changes shortly after. Instead German’s took all men ages eighteen to fifty five to register with the division in charge of forced labor in their communities. This then shifts to men being sent to the army, and younger boys also being sent off to work in the military. To ensure safety women had to figure out plans to try to save their husbands, fathers, or brothers. Judith Tydor Baumel, a Holocaust historian, in her book Double Jeopardy: Gender and the Holocaust, believes the reason for this intense feeling among Jewish women, and their urgent need to emigrate, was due to the fact that Jewish women had more contact with anti-Semitic movements than their male gender encountered. This would make sense, given that women usually went out to do the grocery shopping, clothing shopping, and spent more time integrated in society. Jewish women were more likely to come in contact with the everyday citizens who took up the Nazi cause. Meanwhile, Men were more integrated in the political and economic areas of Germany, and this made them take a more objective view on the Nazi's rise to power, feeling that Hitler's anti-Semitic words were propaganda in order to ensure he would win the election. Many men ignored their wives' pleas for emigration, believing that Hitler and the Nazi party would not be in power for any significant amount of time. This need to emigrate greatly increased after Kristallnacht. Jewish men were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. Although, those who could prove they were about to leave the country could escape the camps. This creates a need for Jewish women to use their remaining freedom and try and get the necessary emigration papers and money to free their male counterparts from the camps. This relates to another shift in the role women play. Jewish women were now having to protect the nature of their husbands, fathers, and brothers, physically from the Nazis. Another form of protection used by Jewish women, if they could not get visas or the necessary papers, was to make the decision to send their children to another country, hoping to keep them away from the Nazi threat and keeping them safe. Marion Kaplan stated that between 1934 and 1939, nearly 18,000 Jewish children left Germany for other countries. While the care-taking and rearing of the children was a traditional female role during this era, people assume that physical protection of the family would have been a masculine role. Since women were convincing their husbands to let their children emigrate, they became the physical protectors of the family. Again, this is a gender role reversal, showing that women needed to be the families protectors and work to ensure safety.
To conclude, the role women play in Germany during the rise of Hitler shifts.
Due to the way Nazis treat women, they are not attacked the same way as men. This forces them to take on and learn new jobs and skills, in order to provide for their families. Also, women shift to having to start ensuring the safety of their family by physically ensuring their protection, which is another shift that women had not been responsible for. First off, we see why gender roles have to shift during the rise of Hitler. Knowing the impact and importance and reasoning behind it explains why it was crucial this shift occurred. Secondly, we learn how women take on a new role in the work force. After men are kicked out of all jobs and after kristallnacht women needed to take over and provide for their families and communities. Especially in jobs like factories where men were could not work and instead had to be in hiding and doing traditionally what women did. Lastly, we see how women shift in learning how to physically protect their families. This is no longer economic but instead they needed to ensure the safety of their family. In general, the role women traditionally held had to shift which is caused by the Nazis. Women at this time are no longer thought of in their traditional work feild and responsibilities, but instead take on new roles to utilize their abilities, freedoms, and opportunities, during the rise of
Hitler.