How were the Jews persecuted?

Answer 1

Throughout History, Jews (called Israelites in ancient times) have been persecuted by slavery, war, murder, and limited or no rights under the law of the countries they lived in. But the most egregious example of wide-scale extermination of Jews occurred in the 20th Century.

European Jews were sent to concentration camps and tortured. Some were killed in gas chambers, some were starved to death, and others were put to forced hard labor, on starvation rations.

The events affecting the Jews of Europe during the Nazi era were a culmination of centuries of hate and abuse; Jews were often accused of being the source of society's problems; they were the universal scapegoat. Just one example is the writings of Martin Luther from the mid 1500s in Germany, which were often quoted or paraphrased by Hitler in speeches.

Another example were the centuries of pogroms carried out throughout Russia, the Ukraine and many other countries, as illustrated in the movie "The Fiddler on the Roof," when all the Jews of the village were driven out. That depiction was quite mild; in reality pogroms were often characterized by government sanctioned brutality and murder, perpetrated by the Jews' own neighbors and townspeople.

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Answer 2

Jews have been persecuted in every way imaginable. To see some further detail on the times and means of anti-Semitic persecutions through history, see the link: A list of anti-Semitic persecutions