How Much Did Nazi Policies Towards The Jews Change Between 1939

How much did Nazi Policies towards the Jews change between 1939-1945?

Between the years 1939 – 1945 the Nazi policies towards the Jews had changed a lot. This happened by the Nazis creating laws and restrictions, setting up ghettos and even came to a final solution to get rid of most of the population of the Jews.
Before 1939, hundreds of thousands of Jews lived in Germany. However, there were still restrictions towards them but they weren’t as severe as they were in the later years. For example in 1937, members of the SS (Hitler’s private bodyguard), blocked Jews from entering certain buildings. This was very unfair as they were not treated equally like every other religion. Also in 1938, the Germans burnt down and destroyed Jewish businesses and synagogues. This would have affected the Jews economically because their business was their way to earn money.
In 1939 the Nazis made up more laws and restrictions for the Jewish community to follow. But this time they were more serious. In late 1939 – 1940, most of the Jewish people were forced to leave their homes and move to Jewish ghettos. They had to leave their valuables behind and they probably didn’t feel safe either. Another law was that in 1939 – 1941, every Jew had to wear a yellow ‘Star of David’ on their clothes. The Nazis made this law because they wanted the Jews to be singled out and recognised everywhere they go. This would have affected the Jews socially because everyone would know that they are Jewish and avoid them. This was a big change since before 1939 because now the Nazi policies were more serious.
Introduced in 1941 were the Jewish ghettos. Ghettos were like camps or enclosed parts of town just for Jewish people. The Germans built the ghettos in order to gather up all of the Jews into one place so it would be easier for the Nazis to do their final solution. The average amount of ghettos in a country was round about ten, so the Germans were pretty desperate to get rid of the Jews. There were many ghettos across Europe. Living in ghettos affected the Jews socially because they couldn’t communicate or socialise with any other backgrounds or religions; only other Jewish people. In the ghettos the Jewish people had to work really hard and had to ration out food. Most Jews died of starvation; they only had to survive on 300 calories a day. The Nazi policies had changed even more by now. This is because before they only had to follow a few laws the Nazis made which was nothing compared to this. Now the Jews were being forced out of their own houses and made to live in horrific ghettos.
After being put into the ghettos, Hitler decided to carry out the ‘final solution’. The final solution was to eventually kill the Jews living in the ghettos. At first the Germans killed most of the Jews using much simpler methods, which was by shooting them. The shootings took place at killing units called ‘Einsatzgruppen’. There were four ‘Einsatzgruppen’ lettered A – D. They were based in Moscow, Ukraine and Poland. More than a million Jews were affected by the mass shootings. But shooting the Jews took too much time so by 1941 the Germans had thought of a much quicker way to kill hundreds of Jews at once. The Nazis had set up death camps. Millions of Jews were sent to death camps either to work or to be killed. Gas chambers were built in these camps in order to increase the amount of Jewish people being killed at the same time. More than 6,000 Jews died a day from the gas chambers. The gas chambers would be filled with a poisonous gas called Zyclon B. The Jewish people would die a very slow and painful death as it took about twenty minutes for them to actually die. Many Jews were affected by this as thousands of them died each day and the Jewish population was decreasing rapidly. Since 1939 the Nazi polices have changed massively up to the final solution. This is because now they are actually killing most of the Jews but before there were just some rules and restrictions to obey.
In conclusion, there was a massive change in Nazi policies towards the Jews between 1939 – 1945. This is because in 1939 laws were made just for Jews to follow whereas from 1942 onwards the policies were more extreme when the death camps were brought into action. The overall major change would have to be the death camps. This is because the Nazis had decided to kill off all of the Jews once and for all.