Ok weird question but why did they have to remove their shoes? It's not like the nazis wanted them to be able to swim freely anyways. And if they wanted to resell them for profit, why didn't they remove the jewelry as well?
This was a horrible thing that happened and I understand the importance of remembering the past but I can't help but wonder how many people have tripped over these and fallen in because they weren't paying attention tor their feet.
One prevailing reason is that some Christians (it used to be a far greater number of Christians) blame the Jewish people for the death of Jesus Christ. "The Jews crucified Jesus" has been said to me. When I was a child I remember being taught that the Roman's offered Jews a choice to let Jesus go free, or to let go free a known murderer and the Jews choice to free the murderer. Historically, this is inaccurate. And even as a child I can remember thinking "Why would they do that? It makes no sense." But as a child I also believed it because I was a child being taught a "fact" by an authority figure.
In the times of early Christianity, the church was the authority on all biblical knowledge. In fact, a majority of educated people were part of the church. Most people couldn't read, and even if you could, you wouldn't have access to the kind of fact checking resources we have access to today. So when the church taught that the Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus...
... people believed as much. Once something because well known, its difficult to contradict, even when it's wrong. So by WW2, a charismatic leader saying "the Jews are also to blame for the problems in our country today" was easy to believe as many people still believed Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus.
I don't know if that is specifically true. I think anti-semitic propaganda probably caused many people to think very poorly of Jews even without being Christian
In the times of early Christianity, the church was the authority on all biblical knowledge. In fact, a majority of educated people were part of the church. Most people couldn't read, and even if you could, you wouldn't have access to the kind of fact checking resources we have access to today. So when the church taught that the Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus...