The Difficulty of Traveling

On this page you will learn about the difficulty of traveling in this time of horror. It was very hard to get from one place to another because so much was needed and lots of thing made it hard for them to move around freely.

Back in 1935, the Reichstag made the Nuremberg Race Laws. These laws determined that Jews could no longer be citizens of Germany. Next, in 1938, all Jews had to add names to their identification papers. The names were "Israel" and "Sarah". Also their passports were marked with the red letter J, for Jude.

You may be wondering why I'm telling you about this. Well in order for Jews to legally emigrate form Germany, they needed German passports and visas permitting them to enter another country. They also needed many other official documents.

Most countries also limited the amount of immigrants allowed to enter. Those countries required that the people entering would be able to support themselves. This was a problem because German authorities restricted the amount of money that the emigrating Jews could have. All of these requirements made it very difficult for Jews to emigrate.

The Kristallnacht Program, or "The Night of Broken Glass", was a attack on Jews. It was full of looting and damaging Jewish businesses, homes, and synagogues. Approximately 1,400 synagogues were burned and 7,000 stores owned by Jews were damaged and looted along with hundreds of homes. After the Kristallnacht Program, the German Jews panicked and wanted to leave. Despite all of the difficulties, until October 1941- as long as the German authorities allowed Jews to leave- nearly 60% of the Jews managed to. However, many fled to other European countries that ended up being occupied by the Nazis either months or years earlier. As you can now see, traveling was very difficult for the Jews.