The Persecution of Minorities

Question 1

What types of people were persecuted by Nazis?

Answer 1

• Jews
• Black people
• Homosexuals
• Communists
• Eastern European people
• Roma and Sinti (gypsies)
• Disabled people
• ‘Asocials’
• Jehovah Witnesses
• Radical Christians
• Trade Unionists

Question 2

How were homosexuals persecuted?

Answer 2

• Organisations for gay and lesbian people were shut down
• Homosexuality was already a crime and there was a lot of antigay prejudice even before 1933, so the Nazis exploited it
• Books by gay authors were banned
• Around 100,000 gay people were arrested with around 50,000 sent to prison

Question 3

More about homosexual persecution

Answer 3

• Many were sent to concentration camps
• Wore a pink triangle to mark them
• They weren’t seen as ‘normal’
• Couldn’t reproduce the Aryan race
• Gays were seen as unfit to be soldiers and too ‘feminine’
• Nazis wanted strong men who were ready for war

Question 4

How were disabled/mentally handicapped people persecuted?

Answer 4

• ‘Euthanasia program’ begun in 1939
• At least 5000 babies and children were killed between 1939 and 1945 either by injection or starvation
• Between 1939 and 1941, 72,000 mentally ill patients were gassed

Question 5

How were Roma and Sinti people persecuted?

Answer 5

• The Nazis judged Roma and Sinti people to be “racially inferior”
• They faced discrimination because of their different way of life
• Historians estimate that between 200,000 and 500,000 Roma and Sinti people were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators
• Many more were imprisoned, forced to do labour or subject to forced sterilisation and medical experimentation

Question 6

More about Roma and Sinti persecution

Answer 6

• Targeted for persecution and imprisonment
• Deported to ghettos and concentration camps
• Murdered in gas chambers
• Nuremberg laws about Jews and Aryans also applied to the Roma and Sinti

Question 7

Persecution of Black people

Answer 7

• Many black people who lived in Germany under the Nazi regime were persecuted, alienated and murdered during this period.
• The Nazis viewed them as a threat to the purity of the Germanic race.
• Nazi propaganda posters, showing friendship across racial groups, referred to ‘a loss of racial pride.’

Question 8

Examples of ‘asocials’

Answer 8

• Alcoholics
• Homeless
• Prostitutes
• Habitual criminals
• Beggars

They were all rounded off the streets and taken to concentration camps.