ABSTRACT
The history of the Holocaust can be divided into two periods: 1933–1939 and 1939–1945. The first phase sees the exclusion of Jews from the economic, social, and cultural life of Germany and Austria, while the second coincides with the war and the systematic plunder and extermination of European Jewry. Eastern European Jewry differed markedly from that of Central and Western Europe in three principle ways: language, class, and religion. Nazi ideology was also driven by its desire for vengeance for Germany’s defeat in World War I and subsequent humiliation at Versailles. The public swimming pool was a site that the Nazis used to generate an endless stream of pornographic antisemitism. Psychological, economic, and demographic factors helped fashion Jewish decision-making when it came to emigration. Policies that had been implemented against German Jews after Adolf Hitler came to power were imposed on Polish Jews.
