isted since ancient times. Many early Christians mistrusted Jews because the Jews remained faithful to their own traditions and refused to convert to Christianity. In the mid-1500's, the religious reformer Martin Luther issued ferocious attacks against the Jews for not adopting his new religion. He referred to the Jews as "venomous" and called for violence against them. In many cities, the Jews were forced to live in separate communities called ghettos. They had to pay special taxes, and they were not allowed to own land or to enter certain occupations. As you can see, this sounds very familiar to some of the conditions placed on the Jew during the Holocaust.
             In the 1800's, many people began discriminating against Jews on racial rather than religious grounds. Many anti-Semitic writers insisted that Jews were an inferior race. Anti-Semitism became a powerful force in European politics. Many people considered the Jews responsible for society's troubles. In 1881, for example, when revolutionaries assassinated Czar Alexander II of Russia, the Jews were blamed. Many Russian Jews were then killed in organized massacres called pogroms.
             In 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a French army officer and a Jew, was accused of selling military secrets. Although the case against Dreyfus was weak, a court-martial condemned him to life imprisonment. After the verdict was announced, his opponents chanted in the streets, "Death to Dreyfus! Death to the Jews!" In 1906, he was cleared of all charges.
             Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi Party, became head of the German government in 1933. He quickly moved to make himself a dictator. Germany's defeat in World War I (1914-1918) and a worldwide depression in the early 1930's had left the country's economy in ruins. Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany's problems, and he made anti-Semitism a government policy.
             On April 1, 1933, Hitler's government sponsored a nationwide boycott of Jewish stores and other b...