Focus on Children in the Holocaust and explore the Segregation in schools.
On April 25, 1933 the Nazi regime enacted the "Law Against Overcrowding in German Schools and Universities" which began school segregation for Jewish children and young adults. This law restricted the number of Jewish children who could enroll in public schools to 1.5 percent of the total school population. However, when the Jewish population in the surrounding area was greater than 5 percent, 5 percent of the school population could be Jewish. Additionally, many Jewish children were eligible for exemptions, allowing them to circumvent the law. These exemptions applied to Jewish children of mixed marriage, those with fathers who served in World War I, and those with foreign citizenship.Despite the increased eligibility of Jewish children and young adults as a result of the exemptions, many Jewish students older than 14 left the school system, as school was not required past this age. For example, in Württemberg, 58 percent of the Jewish student population at higher schools left, despite the 1933 law only applying to 10 percent of the students. This highlights how many Jewish students left the public school system by choice in order to escape the increasingly antisemitic school environment. The growing hostility towards Jewish children is reflected by the fact that Jewish students received worse grades than their peers, regardless of the quality of their work. Additionally, teachers forbade Jewish students from participating in school activities and incorporated elements of the Nazi ideology in their classrooms, such as the use of anti-Semitic terms in class. As a result of the antagonistic atmosphere in the classroom, many Jewish students faced isolation from their former friends.Eventually many German Jews enrolled their children in Jewish schools in order to prevent persecution in the classroom. Consequently, the number of children enrolled in Jewish schools increased from 14 percent in 1932 to 60 percent in 1937. Additionally, within the span of two years, the number of Jewish schools increased from 130 in 1935 to 167 in 1937. The increase in Jewish schools as well as the student population at such schools highlights the shift away from public schools and towards private schools in the German Jewish community.
Although the Jewish community generally shifted towards private schools, German Jews continued to attend public schools until November 15, 1938 when the Reich Minister of Education banned all Jewish students from German public schools.
Jews World War I Jewish left Nazi