They also had some more everyday shit to worry about. They were facing boycotts, pogroms, malnutrition, and were deported into ghettos and camps
That’s my point. Sure, the actual extermination camps might have been hard to believe, but things had been ramping up for years. If the US eventually gets to the extermination camps stage, it’s not there yet. The boycotts and pogroms haven’t even started. But, the warning signs are already there flashing.
What I imagine is that in Germany / Austria, early on, the Jews knew they were being scapegoated, but they thought it was rhetoric and that it wouldn’t get much worse. Then it became a frog in slowly heating water situation. I think there are groups in the US who are at this “It’s just rhetoric, right?” stage.
I’ve met people whose families fled early in the process. Life wasn’t easy for them, emigrating and leaving everything behind. But, they lived, and eventually their families thrived. I just hope people in danger in the US aren’t going to wait until things get much worse and they discover that they can no longer flee at all.
Actually the “International Jewry” bullshit is very much like the “WOKEism/Gender Ideology/DEI” shit we see today: If you replace “Aryan” with “White/American” as well, it is pretty much the exact same thing. This started gradually taking over the state apparatus, with many Germans jumping on the train around 1936. By that point people would be sarcastic and cynical towards the attempts of the state to be more “Aryan”, but at the same time the Jews were construed as alien and curious, and Germans would stop meeting them, so they were made into an out-group first, then vilified.
A good source on this that does not focus on the Holocaust per se is A Social History of the Third Reich.
this “It’s just rhetoric, right?”-stage
If you consider that the “Hitler’s prophecy” was uttered in 1939 and several more times after that, but it didn’t even make front pages, then yes. But keep in mind not all historians agree on that. Some say that the “vernichten/ausrotten” (exterminate/kill) rhetoric was ubiquitous in Hitler’s, Himmler’s, and Goebels’ speeches, and that German people knew where this was going. I am not decided yet, and I want to believe the first, but I have read strong arguments about the Nazis having been explicit in their genocidal plans from the very start. (eg Jeffrey Herf “The Jewish War”)
emigrating and leaving everything behind
Not everyone can emigrate. Some people are too poor to emigrate. Even then, and I keep on the Holocaust story, the Saint Lewis incident shows that people were not welcome to emigrate (in the US, which is no coincidence), and they were sent back! In the US some people think that the federalist situation will allow states (California etc) to keep doing their thing, but the fascists now have the federal government, and the militias. So we don’t know for how long the progressive states will continue be free. Then if you speak for actually emigrating abroad, that would be even more difficult for quite a lot of people.
That’s my point. Sure, the actual extermination camps might have been hard to believe, but things had been ramping up for years. If the US eventually gets to the extermination camps stage, it’s not there yet. The boycotts and pogroms haven’t even started. But, the warning signs are already there flashing.
What I imagine is that in Germany / Austria, early on, the Jews knew they were being scapegoated, but they thought it was rhetoric and that it wouldn’t get much worse. Then it became a frog in slowly heating water situation. I think there are groups in the US who are at this “It’s just rhetoric, right?” stage.
I’ve met people whose families fled early in the process. Life wasn’t easy for them, emigrating and leaving everything behind. But, they lived, and eventually their families thrived. I just hope people in danger in the US aren’t going to wait until things get much worse and they discover that they can no longer flee at all.
Actually the “International Jewry” bullshit is very much like the “WOKEism/Gender Ideology/DEI” shit we see today: If you replace “Aryan” with “White/American” as well, it is pretty much the exact same thing. This started gradually taking over the state apparatus, with many Germans jumping on the train around 1936. By that point people would be sarcastic and cynical towards the attempts of the state to be more “Aryan”, but at the same time the Jews were construed as alien and curious, and Germans would stop meeting them, so they were made into an out-group first, then vilified.
A good source on this that does not focus on the Holocaust per se is A Social History of the Third Reich.
If you consider that the “Hitler’s prophecy” was uttered in 1939 and several more times after that, but it didn’t even make front pages, then yes. But keep in mind not all historians agree on that. Some say that the “vernichten/ausrotten” (exterminate/kill) rhetoric was ubiquitous in Hitler’s, Himmler’s, and Goebels’ speeches, and that German people knew where this was going. I am not decided yet, and I want to believe the first, but I have read strong arguments about the Nazis having been explicit in their genocidal plans from the very start. (eg Jeffrey Herf “The Jewish War”)
Not everyone can emigrate. Some people are too poor to emigrate. Even then, and I keep on the Holocaust story, the Saint Lewis incident shows that people were not welcome to emigrate (in the US, which is no coincidence), and they were sent back! In the US some people think that the federalist situation will allow states (California etc) to keep doing their thing, but the fascists now have the federal government, and the militias. So we don’t know for how long the progressive states will continue be free. Then if you speak for actually emigrating abroad, that would be even more difficult for quite a lot of people.