Printed Ordinance Defining Jews: Imposed on France and Belgium After October 1940

Authors

Object ID

2021.1.8

Object Name

Ordinance

Date

1940

Files

Content Warning

The Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection consists of images, documents, and artifacts related to the Holocaust. The collection contains materials that depict a number of topics that may be difficult for viewers to engage with, including: antisemitic descriptions, caricatures, and representation of Jewish people; Nazi imagery and ideology; descriptions and images of German ghettos; graphic images of the violence of the Holocaust; and the creation of the State of Israel. For more information, see our policy page.

Description

One typewritten ordinance without enumeration.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

The Nazi Party Nuremberg Laws of 1935 - the Reich Citizenship Law and the Blood Protection Act - essentially deprived Jews of German citizenship and civil rights, including the right to vote or hold public office. Marriage between Jews and citizens of German blood was forbidden. These efforts were consistent with, and derived from, the Nazi definition of Jews as a distinct racial entity and not merely a religious category. The Nuremberg Laws were subsequently imposed on German-occupied countries throughout Europe. As in Nazi Germany, defining the Jew in France and Belgium - both countries occupied in 1940 - was therefore an important first step in life and freedom of movement. Ordinances, typically unfurled slowly, would include - but were hardly limited to - curfews, rules on use of public transportation, prohibitions on seating and shopping, loss of typewriters, bicycles and furs. Jewish businesses were aryanized. Jews were required to wear the odious Star of David badge.

Consistent with Nazi racial theory, a Jew would be defined minimally as having at least one Jewish grandparent. A full Jew (Volljuden) had three Jewish grandparents. The effort to define part-Jews or “Mischinge” (Mongrels) was more controversial among the Nazi cognoscenti. A first-degree Mischlinge possessed two Jewish grandparents but neither practiced their faith nor married a Jewish spouse. Second degree Mischlinge, on the other hand, had only one Jewish grandparent. Thus defined, Jews become instated in Nazi Germany as subjects of the state, deprived of legal and civil rights, excluded from participating in German economic and political life, subject to persecution and punishment for perceived infractions of the ever-expanding ordinances, and ultimately death.

Dimensions

8 1/2 x 6 3/4"

Keywords

Nuremberg Laws, Belgium, France, Reich Citizenship Law, Blood Protection Act

Subcollection

Early

Recommended Citation

"Printed Ordinance Defining Jews: Imposed on France and Belgium After October 1940" (1940). Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection. 2021.1.8.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/1710