Historical Antecedents: Why the Holocaust?

Abstract

There are many antecedents to the Holocaust. Antisemitism, the necessary precursor to the Holocaust, has a long history and was usually based on political, economic, religious, or social prejudice. Throughout the nineteenth century, the Jew sought desparately to identify himself with the European Christian community. Many Jews accepted assimilation and conversion in order to gain admission into European society. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, however, a violent racial antisemitism appeared that rejected assimilation as a solution to the "Jewish problem." The ten sions among the Jews themselves—liberals versus orthodox and Zionists versus assimilationists—the economic crises, the need to find a scapegoat for national humiliation, the identifica tion of Jews with Marxists and the swing to the political right helped prepare for the outbreak of violent racial antisemitism which led to the Holocaust. With Hitler ideological anti semitism captured a state. Given the monopoly of political power which Hitler quickly acquired, the deep antisemitic roots in every European state, the indifference with which the world witnessed the increasing persecution in Germany, and the intimidation which the Nazis so successfully employed against the German people, the Holocaust in hindsight seemed inevitable.