Nazi efforts to safeguard the "purity of blood" by codifying racial distinctions affected Jewish life in Germany at every turn. This was acutely illustrated by the case of a Jewish doctor sent to a concentration camp after giving a life-saving transfusion of his own blood to a non-Jew.

The precise terminology of the Nuremberg Laws defined "degrees of Jewishness" based on one's number of Jewish grandparents. Distinctions between "full Jew" and "half-breed Jews" (Mischlinge) became critical, designating not only legal status but also determining Jewish economic survival--and ultimately life or death. Panicked Germans besieged Church registries to secure documentation of their non-Jewish heritage.

Intensified Nazi propaganda about the evils of race defilement thoroughly poisoned relations between Aryans and Jews. Aryan veterinarians even refused to treat the pets of their Jewish owners. Jews became social pariahs, as Germans avoided all contacts that could be construed as traitorous association with the enemies of Aryan blood. Jews were wantonly accused of sexual relations with Aryan women, and even simple casual public encounters with Aryans were risky.

German children, too, became caught up in the newly defined racial distinctions. Indoctrinated and desensitized by Nazi rhetoric, Aryan children were quick to brutalize their Jewish counterparts.
Photo: National Archives/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive