When people think of the Holocaust, they mainly remember the concentration camps, but there were quite of few factors that preceded the development of those concentration camps. What started off the early persecution was the propaganda against the Jews. Next would be the birth of the Numerberg Laws and then Kristallnacht or The Night of Broken Glass. The last measure taken would seem to have been the establishment of ghettos.
In 1933, the Nazis’ published a weekly newspaper Der Sturmer (The Attacker) which degraded the Jews by featuring cartoons caricaturizing them as hooked-nosed and ape-like. Also at the bottom of the front page of each issue the paper stated, "The Jews are our misfortune!" By 1938, about a half million copies were distributed weekly. The Nazis used this as a vital part of showing their influence and growing power.
The most infamous of the anti-Jewish legislation was the Nuremberg Laws, enacted on September 15, 1935. These laws were the keynote of Hitler’s racial program. The first of the laws took from Jews their German citizenship and rights of citizens. The second prohibited Jews from marrying or engaging in sex with Aryans; which is a term used to refer to Germans who were not Jews. Basically, these laws were the legal basis for exclusion of Jews from German society.
November 9-10, 1938 is known as Kristallnacht or The Night of Broken Glass. This attack by the Nazi storm troopers along with members of the SS came after Herschel Grynszpan, a 17 year old Jew, retaliated for the poor treatment of his family. The storm troopers looted and destroyed Jewish homes and businesses and burned synagogues. Many Jews were beaten and killed; 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps.
In 1940, soon after Germany invaded Poland, the Nazis
began establishing ghettos for the Jews of Poland. Jews were forcibly deported
from their homes to live in crowded ghettos, isolated from the rest of
society. This concentration later aided the Nazis in their deportation
of the Jews to the death camps. The ghettos lacked the necessary food,
water, space, and sanitary facilities for the number of people living within
the confined space. Many died from deprivation, starvation, and disease.