History Independent Study Exhibit

This virtual exhibit is the culmination of a semester-long independent research project in the history department undertaken by Lily Schaffer ’23, Olivia Weiss ’23, Ashley O’Leary ’22, and Margarete Maneker ’21. At its center is an investigation into the Nuremberg Laws of the Third Reich. These were a set of laws passed by the Nazis in 1935 that severely restricted the rights of Jews and other marginalized groups within Nazi Germany. We focus primarily on the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour, which forbade marriages between Jews and Gentiles. This law effectively sought to racialize Jews, portraying them as foreign, other, and inferior. Through our work, we examine the historical and legal context of anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe and Germany prior to the establishment of the Nazi state, the effect of this law on Jewish women and girls, and the efforts by the Nazis to justify this otherization through propaganda.